#500characters — Public Fediverse posts
Live and recent posts from across the Fediverse tagged #500characters, aggregated by home.social.
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@DopeGhoti @Andrew How many characters would be sufficient for Mastodon to not count as ableist anymore?
If you say, 1,500, who or what says that 1,500 characters are sufficient to describe any and all images, but a lower limit is not?
For comparison, look at my cover photo. The one with the weird building. I have a post with just about the same image in it; here's the link.
In this post, the image has two separate image descriptions. One is in the alt-text. The alt-text is exactly 1,500 characters long, a bit over 1,400 of which are image description. And that's the short description. It doesn't even have room for any text transcripts. It actually isn't much more than an "alibi description". It's only there because many people on Mastodon demand there be a 100% accurate and sufficiently detailed image description in the alt-text of each image in the Fediverse.
Only that "sufficiently detailed" isn't always possible even in 1,500 characters.
That's why there is an additional long description in the post text. It's sufficiently detailed, as in, fully detailed. An image like this requires a fully detailed description. It comes with transcripts of all bits of text within the borders of the image, and it comes with all explanations necessary to understand the image and the description. It's over 60,000 characters long.
Yes, over 60,000 characters in one post. Your character limit is 500. Mine is over 16 million.
Oh, and yes, it's guaranteed to be 100% hand-written. It took me two full days, morning to evening, to research for and write the long description with literally absolutely no help from any AI whatsoever. In fact, I've described details that no AI on the planet will ever be able to see in the image.
So ideally, all Fediverse server platforms should have two image description fields for each profile image, one being the alt-text behind the image, one being a long description next to the image. The latter should not have an arbitrarily-chosen character limit.
#Long #LongPost #CWLong #CWLongPost #FediMeta #FediverseMeta #CWFediMeta #CWFediverseMeta #CharacterLimit #CharacterLimits #CharacterLimitMeta #CWCharacterLimitMeta #500Characters #AltText #AltTextMeta #CWAltTextMeta #ImageDescription #ImageDescriptions #ImageDescriptionMeta #CWImageDescriptionMeta #Ableist #Ableism #AbleismMeta #CWAbleismMeta -
@DopeGhoti @Andrew How many characters would be sufficient for Mastodon to not count as ableist anymore?
If you say, 1,500, who or what says that 1,500 characters are sufficient to describe any and all images, but a lower limit is not?
For comparison, look at my cover photo. The one with the weird building. I have a post with just about the same image in it; here's the link.
In this post, the image has two separate image descriptions. One is in the alt-text. The alt-text is exactly 1,500 characters long, a bit over 1,400 of which are image description. And that's the short description. It doesn't even have room for any text transcripts. It actually isn't much more than an "alibi description". It's only there because many people on Mastodon demand there be a 100% accurate and sufficiently detailed image description in the alt-text of each image in the Fediverse.
Only that "sufficiently detailed" isn't always possible even in 1,500 characters.
That's why there is an additional long description in the post text. It's sufficiently detailed, as in, fully detailed. An image like this requires a fully detailed description. It comes with transcripts of all bits of text within the borders of the image, and it comes with all explanations necessary to understand the image and the description. It's over 60,000 characters long.
Yes, over 60,000 characters in one post. Your character limit is 500. Mine is over 16 million.
Oh, and yes, it's guaranteed to be 100% hand-written. It took me two full days, morning to evening, to research for and write the long description with literally absolutely no help from any AI whatsoever. In fact, I've described details that no AI on the planet will ever be able to see in the image.
So ideally, all Fediverse server platforms should have two image description fields for each profile image, one being the alt-text behind the image, one being a long description next to the image. The latter should not have an arbitrarily-chosen character limit.
#Long #LongPost #CWLong #CWLongPost #FediMeta #FediverseMeta #CWFediMeta #CWFediverseMeta #CharacterLimit #CharacterLimits #CharacterLimitMeta #CWCharacterLimitMeta #500Characters #AltText #AltTextMeta #CWAltTextMeta #ImageDescription #ImageDescriptions #ImageDescriptionMeta #CWImageDescriptionMeta #Ableist #Ableism #AbleismMeta #CWAbleismMeta -
CW: Good image descriptions require a much bigger effort than you may think; CW: long (over 5,300 characters), Fediverse meta, Fediverse-beyond-Mastodon meta, character limit meta, content warning meta, hashtag meta, alt-text meta, image description meta, AI mentioned (AI-)
Image descriptions are important in the Fediverse, at least if your posts have a chance to reach Mastodon. But is it only about having image descriptions in general? Is it only about having image descriptions at all? Or is it about image description quality as well?
Blind or visually-impaired users say that anything is better than nothing. But seriously, the image file name as the alt-text is useless. So is a copy of the post text as the alt-text; at least one mobile app for Mastodon seems to do that automatically. So is some gibberish written into the alt-text, just so that there's some alt-text.
So you write a short image description for your alt-text. That should be much better than nothing.
But then you're criticised and sanctioned because your image description lacks detail.
Since you can't or don't want to write a longer description, you leave that to an AI.
But then you're criticised and sanctioned because your image description is obvious AI slop. The AI is inaccurate, it hallucinates, it misidentifies things and it still leaves out details.
Okay, so you sit down and put quite some time and effort into a hand-written image description that's both accurate and detailed. At least you think so.
And still, someone may come and criticise and/or sanction you for having left out certain details.
If you don't fix your image description to their satisfaction, you're insulted as ableist and blocked very publicly so that as many other users as possible block you, too.
Now, minimum quality standards for image descriptions are evolving over time. What matters now didn't necessarily matter two years ago. Things that don't matter now may matter in two years or in five years. Even today, alt-text activists criticise image posts that are several years old for image descriptions that they consider less than optimal. This means the image descriptions that you write today must be good enough for as long as your image posts stay available. If they aren't, have fun going through all your old image posts, editing them and upgrading the image descriptions to the latest minimum requirements.
There's only way to be safe from Mastodon's alt-text police in the long run: First of all, you must educate yourself about all the rules and guidelines of alt-texts and image descriptions, and there are dozens of websites about these. You can't know beforehand which ones of these rules will be declared mandatory by someone from the alt-text police in the future, so you'd better follow them to a tee already now. Of course, when two rules contradict each other, you must know which one to follow.
Also, you must know that the requirements and quality standards for good alt-texts and image descriptions on Mastodon are different from the entire rest of the Web. What's good enough for the Web isn't necessarily good enough for Mastodon.
Lastly, you must know your audience. And normally, your audience can be anyone anywhere in the Fediverse or even on the Web. There are only very few places in the Fediverse where you can control who will be able to read your stuff, and Mastodon isn't one of them. You must know your audience, and you must at least be able to estimate what they know about the contents of your image, what they don't know and what they need to know. If your audience doesn't necessarily know what something is, explain it, but please do so in the post text and not in the alt-text! If your audience doesn't necessarily know what something looks like, but it may want to know, describe what it looks like.
As for my own images, my strategy is to write two image descriptions for each image. One is the short image description; it goes into the alt-text. I'm going to limit that to a maximum of 512 characters because Misskey and its forks delete alt-texts that are over 512 characters long. The other one is the long image description; it goes into the post text. The long image description is fully detailed, it contains all explanations necessary to understand the image and its descriptions, and it contains transcripts of every last bit of text anywhere within the borders of the image, readable in the image or not.
Posting memes is a bit easier. There is only one image description that's hopefully short enough to go into the alt-text. But I still need to explain a whole lot of things, and as I can't always rely upon links to websites like KnowYourMeme for explanations, I often have to write a whole lot of explanations into the post.
Ideally, the worst that could happen to me is being criticised for my alt-text exceeding 200 characters or my post exceeding 500 characters or being blocked for the latter. I reduce the chance for that to happen with a summary that includes a long post content warning with the rough length of the post and the hashtags #Long, #LongPost, #CWLong and #CWLongPost that can be filtered. I almost always add hashtags for folks to filter.
But I hope that nobody can say I haven't tried hard enough.
#FediMeta #FediverseMeta #CWFediMeta #CWFediverseMeta #CharacterLimit #CharacterLimits #CharacterLimitMeta #CWCharacterLimitMeta #500Characters #CW #CWs #CWMeta #ContentWarning #ContentWarnings #ContentWarningMeta #Hashtag #Hashtags #HashtagMeta #CWHashtagMeta #AltText #AltTextMeta #CWAltTextMeta #ImageDescription #ImageDescriptions #ImageDescriptionMeta #CWImageDescriptionMeta -
CW: Good image descriptions require a much bigger effort than you may think; CW: long (over 5,300 characters), Fediverse meta, Fediverse-beyond-Mastodon meta, character limit meta, content warning meta, hashtag meta, alt-text meta, image description meta, AI mentioned (AI-)
Image descriptions are important in the Fediverse, at least if your posts have a chance to reach Mastodon. But is it only about having image descriptions in general? Is it only about having image descriptions at all? Or is it about image description quality as well?
Blind or visually-impaired users say that anything is better than nothing. But seriously, the image file name as the alt-text is useless. So is a copy of the post text as the alt-text; at least one mobile app for Mastodon seems to do that automatically. So is some gibberish written into the alt-text, just so that there's some alt-text.
So you write a short image description for your alt-text. That should be much better than nothing.
But then you're criticised and sanctioned because your image description lacks detail.
Since you can't or don't want to write a longer description, you leave that to an AI.
But then you're criticised and sanctioned because your image description is obvious AI slop. The AI is inaccurate, it hallucinates, it misidentifies things and it still leaves out details.
Okay, so you sit down and put quite some time and effort into a hand-written image description that's both accurate and detailed. At least you think so.
And still, someone may come and criticise and/or sanction you for having left out certain details.
If you don't fix your image description to their satisfaction, you're insulted as ableist and blocked very publicly so that as many other users as possible block you, too.
Now, minimum quality standards for image descriptions are evolving over time. What matters now didn't necessarily matter two years ago. Things that don't matter now may matter in two years or in five years. Even today, alt-text activists criticise image posts that are several years old for image descriptions that they consider less than optimal. This means the image descriptions that you write today must be good enough for as long as your image posts stay available. If they aren't, have fun going through all your old image posts, editing them and upgrading the image descriptions to the latest minimum requirements.
There's only way to be safe from Mastodon's alt-text police in the long run: First of all, you must educate yourself about all the rules and guidelines of alt-texts and image descriptions, and there are dozens of websites about these. You can't know beforehand which ones of these rules will be declared mandatory by someone from the alt-text police in the future, so you'd better follow them to a tee already now. Of course, when two rules contradict each other, you must know which one to follow.
Also, you must know that the requirements and quality standards for good alt-texts and image descriptions on Mastodon are different from the entire rest of the Web. What's good enough for the Web isn't necessarily good enough for Mastodon.
Lastly, you must know your audience. And normally, your audience can be anyone anywhere in the Fediverse or even on the Web. There are only very few places in the Fediverse where you can control who will be able to read your stuff, and Mastodon isn't one of them. You must know your audience, and you must at least be able to estimate what they know about the contents of your image, what they don't know and what they need to know. If your audience doesn't necessarily know what something is, explain it, but please do so in the post text and not in the alt-text! If your audience doesn't necessarily know what something looks like, but it may want to know, describe what it looks like.
As for my own images, my strategy is to write two image descriptions for each image. One is the short image description; it goes into the alt-text. I'm going to limit that to a maximum of 512 characters because Misskey and its forks delete alt-texts that are over 512 characters long. The other one is the long image description; it goes into the post text. The long image description is fully detailed, it contains all explanations necessary to understand the image and its descriptions, and it contains transcripts of every last bit of text anywhere within the borders of the image, readable in the image or not.
Posting memes is a bit easier. There is only one image description that's hopefully short enough to go into the alt-text. But I still need to explain a whole lot of things, and as I can't always rely upon links to websites like KnowYourMeme for explanations, I often have to write a whole lot of explanations into the post.
Ideally, the worst that could happen to me is being criticised for my alt-text exceeding 200 characters or my post exceeding 500 characters or being blocked for the latter. I reduce the chance for that to happen with a summary that includes a long post content warning with the rough length of the post and the hashtags #Long, #LongPost, #CWLong and #CWLongPost that can be filtered. I almost always add hashtags for folks to filter.
But I hope that nobody can say I haven't tried hard enough.
#FediMeta #FediverseMeta #CWFediMeta #CWFediverseMeta #CharacterLimit #CharacterLimits #CharacterLimitMeta #CWCharacterLimitMeta #500Characters #CW #CWs #CWMeta #ContentWarning #ContentWarnings #ContentWarningMeta #Hashtag #Hashtags #HashtagMeta #CWHashtagMeta #AltText #AltTextMeta #CWAltTextMeta #ImageDescription #ImageDescriptions #ImageDescriptionMeta #CWImageDescriptionMeta -
CW: Good image descriptions require a much bigger effort than you may think; CW: long (over 5,300 characters), Fediverse meta, Fediverse-beyond-Mastodon meta, character limit meta, content warning meta, hashtag meta, alt-text meta, image description meta, AI mentioned (AI-)
Image descriptions are important in the Fediverse, at least if your posts have a chance to reach Mastodon. But is it only about having image descriptions in general? Is it only about having image descriptions at all? Or is it about image description quality as well?
Blind or visually-impaired users say that anything is better than nothing. But seriously, the image file name as the alt-text is useless. So is a copy of the post text as the alt-text; at least one mobile app for Mastodon seems to do that automatically. So is some gibberish written into the alt-text, just so that there's some alt-text.
So you write a short image description for your alt-text. That should be much better than nothing.
But then you're criticised and sanctioned because your image description lacks detail.
Since you can't or don't want to write a longer description, you leave that to an AI.
But then you're criticised and sanctioned because your image description is obvious AI slop. The AI is inaccurate, it hallucinates, it misidentifies things and it still leaves out details.
Okay, so you sit down and put quite some time and effort into a hand-written image description that's both accurate and detailed. At least you think so.
And still, someone may come and criticise and/or sanction you for having left out certain details.
If you don't fix your image description to their satisfaction, you're insulted as ableist and blocked very publicly so that as many other users as possible block you, too.
Now, minimum quality standards for image descriptions are evolving over time. What matters now didn't necessarily matter two years ago. Things that don't matter now may matter in two years or in five years. Even today, alt-text activists criticise image posts that are several years old for image descriptions that they consider less than optimal. This means the image descriptions that you write today must be good enough for as long as your image posts stay available. If they aren't, have fun going through all your old image posts, editing them and upgrading the image descriptions to the latest minimum requirements.
There's only way to be safe from Mastodon's alt-text police in the long run: First of all, you must educate yourself about all the rules and guidelines of alt-texts and image descriptions, and there are dozens of websites about these. You can't know beforehand which ones of these rules will be declared mandatory by someone from the alt-text police in the future, so you'd better follow them to a tee already now. Of course, when two rules contradict each other, you must know which one to follow.
Also, you must know that the requirements and quality standards for good alt-texts and image descriptions on Mastodon are different from the entire rest of the Web. What's good enough for the Web isn't necessarily good enough for Mastodon.
Lastly, you must know your audience. And normally, your audience can be anyone anywhere in the Fediverse or even on the Web. There are only very few places in the Fediverse where you can control who will be able to read your stuff, and Mastodon isn't one of them. You must know your audience, and you must at least be able to estimate what they know about the contents of your image, what they don't know and what they need to know. If your audience doesn't necessarily know what something is, explain it, but please do so in the post text and not in the alt-text! If your audience doesn't necessarily know what something looks like, but it may want to know, describe what it looks like.
As for my own images, my strategy is to write two image descriptions for each image. One is the short image description; it goes into the alt-text. I'm going to limit that to a maximum of 512 characters because Misskey and its forks delete alt-texts that are over 512 characters long. The other one is the long image description; it goes into the post text. The long image description is fully detailed, it contains all explanations necessary to understand the image and its descriptions, and it contains transcripts of every last bit of text anywhere within the borders of the image, readable in the image or not.
Posting memes is a bit easier. There is only one image description that's hopefully short enough to go into the alt-text. But I still need to explain a whole lot of things, and as I can't always rely upon links to websites like KnowYourMeme for explanations, I often have to write a whole lot of explanations into the post.
Ideally, the worst that could happen to me is being criticised for my alt-text exceeding 200 characters or my post exceeding 500 characters or being blocked for the latter. I reduce the chance for that to happen with a summary that includes a long post content warning with the rough length of the post and the hashtags #Long, #LongPost, #CWLong and #CWLongPost that can be filtered. I almost always add hashtags for folks to filter.
But I hope that nobody can say I haven't tried hard enough.
#FediMeta #FediverseMeta #CWFediMeta #CWFediverseMeta #CharacterLimit #CharacterLimits #CharacterLimitMeta #CWCharacterLimitMeta #500Characters #CW #CWs #CWMeta #ContentWarning #ContentWarnings #ContentWarningMeta #Hashtag #Hashtags #HashtagMeta #CWHashtagMeta #AltText #AltTextMeta #CWAltTextMeta #ImageDescription #ImageDescriptions #ImageDescriptionMeta #CWImageDescriptionMeta -
CW: Good image descriptions require a much bigger effort than you may think; CW: long (over 5,300 characters), Fediverse meta, Fediverse-beyond-Mastodon meta, character limit meta, content warning meta, hashtag meta, alt-text meta, image description meta, AI mentioned (AI-)
Image descriptions are important in the Fediverse, at least if your posts have a chance to reach Mastodon. But is it only about having image descriptions in general? Is it only about having image descriptions at all? Or is it about image description quality as well?
Blind or visually-impaired users say that anything is better than nothing. But seriously, the image file name as the alt-text is useless. So is a copy of the post text as the alt-text; at least one mobile app for Mastodon seems to do that automatically. So is some gibberish written into the alt-text, just so that there's some alt-text.
So you write a short image description for your alt-text. That should be much better than nothing.
But then you're criticised and sanctioned because your image description lacks detail.
Since you can't or don't want to write a longer description, you leave that to an AI.
But then you're criticised and sanctioned because your image description is obvious AI slop. The AI is inaccurate, it hallucinates, it misidentifies things and it still leaves out details.
Okay, so you sit down and put quite some time and effort into a hand-written image description that's both accurate and detailed. At least you think so.
And still, someone may come and criticise and/or sanction you for having left out certain details.
If you don't fix your image description to their satisfaction, you're insulted as ableist and blocked very publicly so that as many other users as possible block you, too.
Now, minimum quality standards for image descriptions are evolving over time. What matters now didn't necessarily matter two years ago. Things that don't matter now may matter in two years or in five years. Even today, alt-text activists criticise image posts that are several years old for image descriptions that they consider less than optimal. This means the image descriptions that you write today must be good enough for as long as your image posts stay available. If they aren't, have fun going through all your old image posts, editing them and upgrading the image descriptions to the latest minimum requirements.
There's only way to be safe from Mastodon's alt-text police in the long run: First of all, you must educate yourself about all the rules and guidelines of alt-texts and image descriptions, and there are dozens of websites about these. You can't know beforehand which ones of these rules will be declared mandatory by someone from the alt-text police in the future, so you'd better follow them to a tee already now. Of course, when two rules contradict each other, you must know which one to follow.
Also, you must know that the requirements and quality standards for good alt-texts and image descriptions on Mastodon are different from the entire rest of the Web. What's good enough for the Web isn't necessarily good enough for Mastodon.
Lastly, you must know your audience. And normally, your audience can be anyone anywhere in the Fediverse or even on the Web. There are only very few places in the Fediverse where you can control who will be able to read your stuff, and Mastodon isn't one of them. You must know your audience, and you must at least be able to estimate what they know about the contents of your image, what they don't know and what they need to know. If your audience doesn't necessarily know what something is, explain it, but please do so in the post text and not in the alt-text! If your audience doesn't necessarily know what something looks like, but it may want to know, describe what it looks like.
As for my own images, my strategy is to write two image descriptions for each image. One is the short image description; it goes into the alt-text. I'm going to limit that to a maximum of 512 characters because Misskey and its forks delete alt-texts that are over 512 characters long. The other one is the long image description; it goes into the post text. The long image description is fully detailed, it contains all explanations necessary to understand the image and its descriptions, and it contains transcripts of every last bit of text anywhere within the borders of the image, readable in the image or not.
Posting memes is a bit easier. There is only one image description that's hopefully short enough to go into the alt-text. But I still need to explain a whole lot of things, and as I can't always rely upon links to websites like KnowYourMeme for explanations, I often have to write a whole lot of explanations into the post.
Ideally, the worst that could happen to me is being criticised for my alt-text exceeding 200 characters or my post exceeding 500 characters or being blocked for the latter. I reduce the chance for that to happen with a summary that includes a long post content warning with the rough length of the post and the hashtags #Long, #LongPost, #CWLong and #CWLongPost that can be filtered. I almost always add hashtags for folks to filter.
But I hope that nobody can say I haven't tried hard enough.
#FediMeta #FediverseMeta #CWFediMeta #CWFediverseMeta #CharacterLimit #CharacterLimits #CharacterLimitMeta #CWCharacterLimitMeta #500Characters #CW #CWs #CWMeta #ContentWarning #ContentWarnings #ContentWarningMeta #Hashtag #Hashtags #HashtagMeta #CWHashtagMeta #AltText #AltTextMeta #CWAltTextMeta #ImageDescription #ImageDescriptions #ImageDescriptionMeta #CWImageDescriptionMeta -
CW: Good image descriptions require a much bigger effort than you may think; CW: long (over 5,300 characters), Fediverse meta, Fediverse-beyond-Mastodon meta, character limit meta, content warning meta, hashtag meta, alt-text meta, image description meta, AI mentioned (AI-)
Image descriptions are important in the Fediverse, at least if your posts have a chance to reach Mastodon. But is it only about having image descriptions in general? Is it only about having image descriptions at all? Or is it about image description quality as well?
Blind or visually-impaired users say that anything is better than nothing. But seriously, the image file name as the alt-text is useless. So is a copy of the post text as the alt-text; at least one mobile app for Mastodon seems to do that automatically. So is some gibberish written into the alt-text, just so that there's some alt-text.
So you write a short image description for your alt-text. That should be much better than nothing.
But then you're criticised and sanctioned because your image description lacks detail.
Since you can't or don't want to write a longer description, you leave that to an AI.
But then you're criticised and sanctioned because your image description is obvious AI slop. The AI is inaccurate, it hallucinates, it misidentifies things and it still leaves out details.
Okay, so you sit down and put quite some time and effort into a hand-written image description that's both accurate and detailed. At least you think so.
And still, someone may come and criticise and/or sanction you for having left out certain details.
If you don't fix your image description to their satisfaction, you're insulted as ableist and blocked very publicly so that as many other users as possible block you, too.
Now, minimum quality standards for image descriptions are evolving over time. What matters now didn't necessarily matter two years ago. Things that don't matter now may matter in two years or in five years. Even today, alt-text activists criticise image posts that are several years old for image descriptions that they consider less than optimal. This means the image descriptions that you write today must be good enough for as long as your image posts stay available. If they aren't, have fun going through all your old image posts, editing them and upgrading the image descriptions to the latest minimum requirements.
There's only way to be safe from Mastodon's alt-text police in the long run: First of all, you must educate yourself about all the rules and guidelines of alt-texts and image descriptions, and there are dozens of websites about these. You can't know beforehand which ones of these rules will be declared mandatory by someone from the alt-text police in the future, so you'd better follow them to a tee already now. Of course, when two rules contradict each other, you must know which one to follow.
Also, you must know that the requirements and quality standards for good alt-texts and image descriptions on Mastodon are different from the entire rest of the Web. What's good enough for the Web isn't necessarily good enough for Mastodon.
Lastly, you must know your audience. And normally, your audience can be anyone anywhere in the Fediverse or even on the Web. There are only very few places in the Fediverse where you can control who will be able to read your stuff, and Mastodon isn't one of them. You must know your audience, and you must at least be able to estimate what they know about the contents of your image, what they don't know and what they need to know. If your audience doesn't necessarily know what something is, explain it, but please do so in the post text and not in the alt-text! If your audience doesn't necessarily know what something looks like, but it may want to know, describe what it looks like.
As for my own images, my strategy is to write two image descriptions for each image. One is the short image description; it goes into the alt-text. I'm going to limit that to a maximum of 512 characters because Misskey and its forks delete alt-texts that are over 512 characters long. The other one is the long image description; it goes into the post text. The long image description is fully detailed, it contains all explanations necessary to understand the image and its descriptions, and it contains transcripts of every last bit of text anywhere within the borders of the image, readable in the image or not.
Posting memes is a bit easier. There is only one image description that's hopefully short enough to go into the alt-text. But I still need to explain a whole lot of things, and as I can't always rely upon links to websites like KnowYourMeme for explanations, I often have to write a whole lot of explanations into the post.
Ideally, the worst that could happen to me is being criticised for my alt-text exceeding 200 characters or my post exceeding 500 characters or being blocked for the latter. I reduce the chance for that to happen with a summary that includes a long post content warning with the rough length of the post and the hashtags #Long, #LongPost, #CWLong and #CWLongPost that can be filtered. I almost always add hashtags for folks to filter.
But I hope that nobody can say I haven't tried hard enough.
#FediMeta #FediverseMeta #CWFediMeta #CWFediverseMeta #CharacterLimit #CharacterLimits #CharacterLimitMeta #CWCharacterLimitMeta #500Characters #CW #CWs #CWMeta #ContentWarning #ContentWarnings #ContentWarningMeta #Hashtag #Hashtags #HashtagMeta #CWHashtagMeta #AltText #AltTextMeta #CWAltTextMeta #ImageDescription #ImageDescriptions #ImageDescriptionMeta #CWImageDescriptionMeta -
@Brett Coulstock You should care if you think that Gargron has invented the Fediverse as a pure Mastodon network. If you think that e.g. Friendica and Hubzilla came into the Mastodon Fediverse after the fact. If you use this thinking as a justification to force Mastodon's rules and Mastodon's culture upon Friendica and Hubzilla users because you take them for intruders in a place where they don't rightfully belong.
Because Friendica and Hubzilla did not intrude into Mastodon's Fediverse. They were in the Fediverse before Mastodon.
You should care if you think that posting more than 500 characters is bad behaviour as it goes against "the Fediverse culture".
Because that "Fediverse culture" is only Mastodon's culture. And the culture on Friendica and Hubzilla, which pre-dates Mastodon itself by years, knows no character limits.
You should care if you think that Gargron is evil for introducing quote-posts to the Fediverse.
Because it was actually Mike Macgirvin, creator of Friendica and Hubzilla, who did that. In 2010. 16 years before now. Almost 6 years before Mastodon was even made.
And because just about everything that isn't Mastodon could quote-post Mastodon toots before Mastodon users even considered quote-posts evil.
You should care if you wish for "the Fediverse" to introduce certain new features. Like reply control. Or better list handlings. Or groups. Or even only more characters.
Because "the Fediverse" does have all these features. Just Mastodon doesn't have them. But Mastodon is not the Fediverse.
You should care if you don't want "the Fediverse" to ever introduce certain features. Like a higher default character limit. Or text formatting.
Because the Fediverse already has such features. As in, it can use these features in posts which it then sends to Mastodon. And there's nothing, absolutely nothing that Mastodon and its users can do against it. Except for muting and blocking.
You should care if you find it easier to use "Mastodon" and "Fediverse" synonymously, and all this "nitpicking" about when it's "Mastodon" and when it's "Fediverse" enrages you.
Because it enrages users in the non-Mastodon Fediverse when people say right into their faces that they toot. And/or that they're on Mastodon and therefore bound to the exact same rules and the exact same culture as everyone else on Mastodon. And they will so very much not let you have your way.
All these are things which, unfortunately, those who have never experienced anything else in the Fediverse than Mastodon will hardly ever understand.
#Long #LongPost #CWLong #CWLongPost #FediMeta #FediverseMeta #CWFediMeta #CWFediverseMeta #Fediverse #Mastodon #QuotePost #QuotePosts #QuoteTweet #QuoteTweets #QuoteToot #QuoteToots #QuoteBoost #QuoteBoosts #QuotedShares #CharacterLimit #CharacterLimits #CharacterLimitMeta #CWCharacterLimitMeta #500Characters #NotOnlyMastodon #FediverseIsNotMastodon #MastodonIsNotTheFediverse -
@Brett Coulstock You should care if you think that Gargron has invented the Fediverse as a pure Mastodon network. If you think that e.g. Friendica and Hubzilla came into the Mastodon Fediverse after the fact. If you use this thinking as a justification to force Mastodon's rules and Mastodon's culture upon Friendica and Hubzilla users because you take them for intruders in a place where they don't rightfully belong.
Because Friendica and Hubzilla did not intrude into Mastodon's Fediverse. They were in the Fediverse before Mastodon.
You should care if you think that posting more than 500 characters is bad behaviour as it goes against "the Fediverse culture".
Because that "Fediverse culture" is only Mastodon's culture. And the culture on Friendica and Hubzilla, which pre-dates Mastodon itself by years, knows no character limits.
You should care if you think that Gargron is evil for introducing quote-posts to the Fediverse.
Because it was actually Mike Macgirvin, creator of Friendica and Hubzilla, who did that. In 2010. 16 years before now. Almost 6 years before Mastodon was even made.
And because just about everything that isn't Mastodon could quote-post Mastodon toots before Mastodon users even considered quote-posts evil.
You should care if you wish for "the Fediverse" to introduce certain new features. Like reply control. Or better list handlings. Or groups. Or even only more characters.
Because "the Fediverse" does have all these features. Just Mastodon doesn't have them. But Mastodon is not the Fediverse.
You should care if you don't want "the Fediverse" to ever introduce certain features. Like a higher default character limit. Or text formatting.
Because the Fediverse already has such features. As in, it can use these features in posts which it then sends to Mastodon. And there's nothing, absolutely nothing that Mastodon and its users can do against it. Except for muting and blocking.
You should care if you find it easier to use "Mastodon" and "Fediverse" synonymously, and all this "nitpicking" about when it's "Mastodon" and when it's "Fediverse" enrages you.
Because it enrages users in the non-Mastodon Fediverse when people say right into their faces that they toot. And/or that they're on Mastodon and therefore bound to the exact same rules and the exact same culture as everyone else on Mastodon. And they will so very much not let you have your way.
All these are things which, unfortunately, those who have never experienced anything else in the Fediverse than Mastodon will hardly ever understand.
#Long #LongPost #CWLong #CWLongPost #FediMeta #FediverseMeta #CWFediMeta #CWFediverseMeta #Fediverse #Mastodon #QuotePost #QuotePosts #QuoteTweet #QuoteTweets #QuoteToot #QuoteToots #QuoteBoost #QuoteBoosts #QuotedShares #CharacterLimit #CharacterLimits #CharacterLimitMeta #CWCharacterLimitMeta #500Characters #NotOnlyMastodon #FediverseIsNotMastodon #MastodonIsNotTheFediverse -
@Brett Coulstock You should care if you think that Gargron has invented the Fediverse as a pure Mastodon network. If you think that e.g. Friendica and Hubzilla came into the Mastodon Fediverse after the fact. If you use this thinking as a justification to force Mastodon's rules and Mastodon's culture upon Friendica and Hubzilla users because you take them for intruders in a place where they don't rightfully belong.
Because Friendica and Hubzilla did not intrude into Mastodon's Fediverse. They were in the Fediverse before Mastodon.
You should care if you think that posting more than 500 characters is bad behaviour as it goes against "the Fediverse culture".
Because that "Fediverse culture" is only Mastodon's culture. And the culture on Friendica and Hubzilla, which pre-dates Mastodon itself by years, knows no character limits.
You should care if you think that Gargron is evil for introducing quote-posts to the Fediverse.
Because it was actually Mike Macgirvin, creator of Friendica and Hubzilla, who did that. In 2010. 16 years before now. Almost 6 years before Mastodon was even made.
And because just about everything that isn't Mastodon could quote-post Mastodon toots before Mastodon users even considered quote-posts evil.
You should care if you wish for "the Fediverse" to introduce certain new features. Like reply control. Or better list handlings. Or groups. Or even only more characters.
Because "the Fediverse" does have all these features. Just Mastodon doesn't have them. But Mastodon is not the Fediverse.
You should care if you don't want "the Fediverse" to ever introduce certain features. Like a higher default character limit. Or text formatting.
Because the Fediverse already has such features. As in, it can use these features in posts which it then sends to Mastodon. And there's nothing, absolutely nothing that Mastodon and its users can do against it. Except for muting and blocking.
You should care if you find it easier to use "Mastodon" and "Fediverse" synonymously, and all this "nitpicking" about when it's "Mastodon" and when it's "Fediverse" enrages you.
Because it enrages users in the non-Mastodon Fediverse when people say right into their faces that they toot. And/or that they're on Mastodon and therefore bound to the exact same rules and the exact same culture as everyone else on Mastodon. And they will so very much not let you have your way.
All these are things which, unfortunately, those who have never experienced anything else in the Fediverse than Mastodon will hardly ever understand.
#Long #LongPost #CWLong #CWLongPost #FediMeta #FediverseMeta #CWFediMeta #CWFediverseMeta #Fediverse #Mastodon #QuotePost #QuotePosts #QuoteTweet #QuoteTweets #QuoteToot #QuoteToots #QuoteBoost #QuoteBoosts #QuotedShares #CharacterLimit #CharacterLimits #CharacterLimitMeta #CWCharacterLimitMeta #500Characters #NotOnlyMastodon #FediverseIsNotMastodon #MastodonIsNotTheFediverse -
@Brett Coulstock You should care if you think that Gargron has invented the Fediverse as a pure Mastodon network. If you think that e.g. Friendica and Hubzilla came into the Mastodon Fediverse after the fact. If you use this thinking as a justification to force Mastodon's rules and Mastodon's culture upon Friendica and Hubzilla users because you take them for intruders in a place where they don't rightfully belong.
Because Friendica and Hubzilla did not intrude into Mastodon's Fediverse. They were in the Fediverse before Mastodon.
You should care if you think that posting more than 500 characters is bad behaviour as it goes against "the Fediverse culture".
Because that "Fediverse culture" is only Mastodon's culture. And the culture on Friendica and Hubzilla, which pre-dates Mastodon itself by years, knows no character limits.
You should care if you think that Gargron is evil for introducing quote-posts to the Fediverse.
Because it was actually Mike Macgirvin, creator of Friendica and Hubzilla, who did that. In 2010. 16 years before now. Almost 6 years before Mastodon was even made.
And because just about everything that isn't Mastodon could quote-post Mastodon toots before Mastodon users even considered quote-posts evil.
You should care if you wish for "the Fediverse" to introduce certain new features. Like reply control. Or better list handlings. Or groups. Or even only more characters.
Because "the Fediverse" does have all these features. Just Mastodon doesn't have them. But Mastodon is not the Fediverse.
You should care if you don't want "the Fediverse" to ever introduce certain features. Like a higher default character limit. Or text formatting.
Because the Fediverse already has such features. As in, it can use these features in posts which it then sends to Mastodon. And there's nothing, absolutely nothing that Mastodon and its users can do against it. Except for muting and blocking.
You should care if you find it easier to use "Mastodon" and "Fediverse" synonymously, and all this "nitpicking" about when it's "Mastodon" and when it's "Fediverse" enrages you.
Because it enrages users in the non-Mastodon Fediverse when people say right into their faces that they toot. And/or that they're on Mastodon and therefore bound to the exact same rules and the exact same culture as everyone else on Mastodon. And they will so very much not let you have your way.
All these are things which, unfortunately, those who have never experienced anything else in the Fediverse than Mastodon will hardly ever understand.
#Long #LongPost #CWLong #CWLongPost #FediMeta #FediverseMeta #CWFediMeta #CWFediverseMeta #Fediverse #Mastodon #QuotePost #QuotePosts #QuoteTweet #QuoteTweets #QuoteToot #QuoteToots #QuoteBoost #QuoteBoosts #QuotedShares #CharacterLimit #CharacterLimits #CharacterLimitMeta #CWCharacterLimitMeta #500Characters #NotOnlyMastodon #FediverseIsNotMastodon #MastodonIsNotTheFediverse -
@Brett Coulstock You should care if you think that Gargron has invented the Fediverse as a pure Mastodon network. If you think that e.g. Friendica and Hubzilla came into the Mastodon Fediverse after the fact. If you use this thinking as a justification to force Mastodon's rules and Mastodon's culture upon Friendica and Hubzilla users because you take them for intruders in a place where they don't rightfully belong.
Because Friendica and Hubzilla did not intrude into Mastodon's Fediverse. They were in the Fediverse before Mastodon.
You should care if you think that posting more than 500 characters is bad behaviour as it goes against "the Fediverse culture".
Because that "Fediverse culture" is only Mastodon's culture. And the culture on Friendica and Hubzilla, which pre-dates Mastodon itself by years, knows no character limits.
You should care if you think that Gargron is evil for introducing quote-posts to the Fediverse.
Because it was actually Mike Macgirvin, creator of Friendica and Hubzilla, who did that. In 2010. 16 years before now. Almost 6 years before Mastodon was even made.
And because just about everything that isn't Mastodon could quote-post Mastodon toots before Mastodon users even considered quote-posts evil.
You should care if you wish for "the Fediverse" to introduce certain new features. Like reply control. Or better list handlings. Or groups. Or even only more characters.
Because "the Fediverse" does have all these features. Just Mastodon doesn't have them. But Mastodon is not the Fediverse.
You should care if you don't want "the Fediverse" to ever introduce certain features. Like a higher default character limit. Or text formatting.
Because the Fediverse already has such features. As in, it can use these features in posts which it then sends to Mastodon. And there's nothing, absolutely nothing that Mastodon and its users can do against it. Except for muting and blocking.
You should care if you find it easier to use "Mastodon" and "Fediverse" synonymously, and all this "nitpicking" about when it's "Mastodon" and when it's "Fediverse" enrages you.
Because it enrages users in the non-Mastodon Fediverse when people say right into their faces that they toot. And/or that they're on Mastodon and therefore bound to the exact same rules and the exact same culture as everyone else on Mastodon. And they will so very much not let you have your way.
All these are things which, unfortunately, those who have never experienced anything else in the Fediverse than Mastodon will hardly ever understand.
#Long #LongPost #CWLong #CWLongPost #FediMeta #FediverseMeta #CWFediMeta #CWFediverseMeta #Fediverse #Mastodon #QuotePost #QuotePosts #QuoteTweet #QuoteTweets #QuoteToot #QuoteToots #QuoteBoost #QuoteBoosts #QuotedShares #CharacterLimit #CharacterLimits #CharacterLimitMeta #CWCharacterLimitMeta #500Characters #NotOnlyMastodon #FediverseIsNotMastodon #MastodonIsNotTheFediverse -
@Brett Coulstock You should care if you think that Gargron has invented the Fediverse as a pure Mastodon network. If you think that e.g. Friendica and Hubzilla came into the Mastodon Fediverse after the fact. If you use this thinking as a justification to force Mastodon's rules and Mastodon's culture upon Friendica and Hubzilla users because you take them for intruders in a place where they don't rightfully belong.
Because Friendica and Hubzilla did not intrude into Mastodon's Fediverse. They were in the Fediverse before Mastodon.
You should care if you think that posting more than 500 characters is bad behaviour as it goes against "the Fediverse culture".
Because that "Fediverse culture" is only Mastodon's culture. And the culture on Friendica and Hubzilla, which pre-dates Mastodon itself by years, knows no character limits.
You should care if you think that Gargron is evil for introducing quote-posts to the Fediverse.
Because it was actually Mike Macgirvin, creator of Friendica and Hubzilla, who did that. In 2010. 16 years before now. Almost 6 years before Mastodon was even made.
And because just about everything that isn't Mastodon could quote-post Mastodon toots before Mastodon users even considered quote-posts evil.
You should care if you wish for "the Fediverse" to introduce certain new features. Like reply control. Or better list handlings. Or groups. Or even only more characters.
Because "the Fediverse" does have all these features. Just Mastodon doesn't have them. But Mastodon is not the Fediverse.
You should care if you don't want "the Fediverse" to ever introduce certain features. Like a higher default character limit. Or text formatting.
Because the Fediverse already has such features. As in, it can use these features in posts which it then sends to Mastodon. And there's nothing, absolutely nothing that Mastodon and its users can do against it. Except for muting and blocking.
You should care if you find it easier to use "Mastodon" and "Fediverse" synonymously, and all this "nitpicking" about when it's "Mastodon" and when it's "Fediverse" enrages you.
Because it enrages users in the non-Mastodon Fediverse when people say right into their faces that they toot. And/or that they're on Mastodon and therefore bound to the exact same rules and the exact same culture as everyone else on Mastodon. And they will so very much not let you have your way.
All these are things which, unfortunately, those who have never experienced anything else in the Fediverse than Mastodon will hardly ever understand.
#Long #LongPost #CWLong #CWLongPost #FediMeta #FediverseMeta #CWFediMeta #CWFediverseMeta #Fediverse #Mastodon #QuotePost #QuotePosts #QuoteTweet #QuoteTweets #QuoteToot #QuoteToots #QuoteBoost #QuoteBoosts #QuotedShares #CharacterLimit #CharacterLimits #CharacterLimitMeta #CWCharacterLimitMeta #500Characters #NotOnlyMastodon #FediverseIsNotMastodon #MastodonIsNotTheFediverse -
@craftxbox No, it's about more than every other Mastodon user thinking that the Fediverse equals Mastodon.
Most of the rest still think (or they think they know):- The Fediverse started with Mastodon. Gargron has invented the Fediverse.
- Everything that isn't Mastodon is either designed as a Mastodon add-on (Pixelfed, PeerTube etc.), or if it clearly isn't that, it's an intruder into the Mastodon Fediverse.
- If Mastodon doesn't have a feature, the Fediverse doesn't have that feature. This also means that if they succeed at keeping Mastodon from introducing a feature that they don't want, the whole Fediverse will never have it.
There are Mastodon users who wish for "the Fediverse" (they mean Mastodon because that's all they know) to introduce some feature, blissfully unaware that this feature is all over the Fediverse outside of Mastodon.
There are Mastodon users who "know for a fact" that Mastodon has just introduced quote-posts to the Fediverse, including an opt-out that works Fediverse-wide. They're blissfully unaware that a) Friendica and Hubzilla have been able to quote-post literally every single last public Mastodon toot since Mastodon's launch in 2016, and b) they both still are, opt-out or not.
And then there are those who spend two years or more thinking the entire Fediverse is a 500-character microblogging service, and who shit brix in sheer terror and hammer on the block button in sheer panic whenever a "toot" with more than 500 characters shows up in their timeline.
And, of course, those who try hard to force Mastodon's culture and Mastodon's rules, both of which are geared towards Mastodon and Mastodon only, upon users of server applications that are very very much not Mastodon. Because they think that Mastodon culture = Fediverse culture. And who, at the same time, fight everyone who suggests they do something that isn't inline with their perception of Mastodon's culture and rules.
#Long #LongPost #CWLong #CWLongPost #FediMeta #FediverseMeta #CWFediMeta #CWFediverseMeta #Fediverse #Mastodon #QuotePost #QuotePosts #QuoteTweet #QuoteTweets #QuoteToot #QuoteToots #QuoteBoost #QuoteBoosts #QuotedShares #CharacterLimit #CharacterLimits #CharacterLimitMeta #CWCharacterLimitMeta #500Characters #NotOnlyMastodon #FediverseIsNotMastodon #MastodonIsNotTheFediverse -
@craftxbox No, it's about more than every other Mastodon user thinking that the Fediverse equals Mastodon.
Most of the rest still think (or they think they know):- The Fediverse started with Mastodon. Gargron has invented the Fediverse.
- Everything that isn't Mastodon is either designed as a Mastodon add-on (Pixelfed, PeerTube etc.), or if it clearly isn't that, it's an intruder into the Mastodon Fediverse.
- If Mastodon doesn't have a feature, the Fediverse doesn't have that feature. This also means that if they succeed at keeping Mastodon from introducing a feature that they don't want, the whole Fediverse will never have it.
There are Mastodon users who wish for "the Fediverse" (they mean Mastodon because that's all they know) to introduce some feature, blissfully unaware that this feature is all over the Fediverse outside of Mastodon.
There are Mastodon users who "know for a fact" that Mastodon has just introduced quote-posts to the Fediverse, including an opt-out that works Fediverse-wide. They're blissfully unaware that a) Friendica and Hubzilla have been able to quote-post literally every single last public Mastodon toot since Mastodon's launch in 2016, and b) they both still are, opt-out or not.
And then there are those who spend two years or more thinking the entire Fediverse is a 500-character microblogging service, and who shit brix in sheer terror and hammer on the block button in sheer panic whenever a "toot" with more than 500 characters shows up in their timeline.
And, of course, those who try hard to force Mastodon's culture and Mastodon's rules, both of which are geared towards Mastodon and Mastodon only, upon users of server applications that are very very much not Mastodon. Because they think that Mastodon culture = Fediverse culture. And who, at the same time, fight everyone who suggests they do something that isn't inline with their perception of Mastodon's culture and rules.
#Long #LongPost #CWLong #CWLongPost #FediMeta #FediverseMeta #CWFediMeta #CWFediverseMeta #Fediverse #Mastodon #QuotePost #QuotePosts #QuoteTweet #QuoteTweets #QuoteToot #QuoteToots #QuoteBoost #QuoteBoosts #QuotedShares #CharacterLimit #CharacterLimits #CharacterLimitMeta #CWCharacterLimitMeta #500Characters #NotOnlyMastodon #FediverseIsNotMastodon #MastodonIsNotTheFediverse -
@craftxbox No, it's about more than every other Mastodon user thinking that the Fediverse equals Mastodon.
Most of the rest still think (or they think they know):- The Fediverse started with Mastodon. Gargron has invented the Fediverse.
- Everything that isn't Mastodon is either designed as a Mastodon add-on (Pixelfed, PeerTube etc.), or if it clearly isn't that, it's an intruder into the Mastodon Fediverse.
- If Mastodon doesn't have a feature, the Fediverse doesn't have that feature. This also means that if they succeed at keeping Mastodon from introducing a feature that they don't want, the whole Fediverse will never have it.
There are Mastodon users who wish for "the Fediverse" (they mean Mastodon because that's all they know) to introduce some feature, blissfully unaware that this feature is all over the Fediverse outside of Mastodon.
There are Mastodon users who "know for a fact" that Mastodon has just introduced quote-posts to the Fediverse, including an opt-out that works Fediverse-wide. They're blissfully unaware that a) Friendica and Hubzilla have been able to quote-post literally every single last public Mastodon toot since Mastodon's launch in 2016, and b) they both still are, opt-out or not.
And then there are those who spend two years or more thinking the entire Fediverse is a 500-character microblogging service, and who shit brix in sheer terror and hammer on the block button in sheer panic whenever a "toot" with more than 500 characters shows up in their timeline.
And, of course, those who try hard to force Mastodon's culture and Mastodon's rules, both of which are geared towards Mastodon and Mastodon only, upon users of server applications that are very very much not Mastodon. Because they think that Mastodon culture = Fediverse culture. And who, at the same time, fight everyone who suggests they do something that isn't inline with their perception of Mastodon's culture and rules.
#Long #LongPost #CWLong #CWLongPost #FediMeta #FediverseMeta #CWFediMeta #CWFediverseMeta #Fediverse #Mastodon #QuotePost #QuotePosts #QuoteTweet #QuoteTweets #QuoteToot #QuoteToots #QuoteBoost #QuoteBoosts #QuotedShares #CharacterLimit #CharacterLimits #CharacterLimitMeta #CWCharacterLimitMeta #500Characters #NotOnlyMastodon #FediverseIsNotMastodon #MastodonIsNotTheFediverse -
@craftxbox No, it's about more than every other Mastodon user thinking that the Fediverse equals Mastodon.
Most of the rest still think (or they think they know):- The Fediverse started with Mastodon. Gargron has invented the Fediverse.
- Everything that isn't Mastodon is either designed as a Mastodon add-on (Pixelfed, PeerTube etc.), or if it clearly isn't that, it's an intruder into the Mastodon Fediverse.
- If Mastodon doesn't have a feature, the Fediverse doesn't have that feature. This also means that if they succeed at keeping Mastodon from introducing a feature that they don't want, the whole Fediverse will never have it.
There are Mastodon users who wish for "the Fediverse" (they mean Mastodon because that's all they know) to introduce some feature, blissfully unaware that this feature is all over the Fediverse outside of Mastodon.
There are Mastodon users who "know for a fact" that Mastodon has just introduced quote-posts to the Fediverse, including an opt-out that works Fediverse-wide. They're blissfully unaware that a) Friendica and Hubzilla have been able to quote-post literally every single last public Mastodon toot since Mastodon's launch in 2016, and b) they both still are, opt-out or not.
And then there are those who spend two years or more thinking the entire Fediverse is a 500-character microblogging service, and who shit brix in sheer terror and hammer on the block button in sheer panic whenever a "toot" with more than 500 characters shows up in their timeline.
And, of course, those who try hard to force Mastodon's culture and Mastodon's rules, both of which are geared towards Mastodon and Mastodon only, upon users of server applications that are very very much not Mastodon. Because they think that Mastodon culture = Fediverse culture. And who, at the same time, fight everyone who suggests they do something that isn't inline with their perception of Mastodon's culture and rules.
#Long #LongPost #CWLong #CWLongPost #FediMeta #FediverseMeta #CWFediMeta #CWFediverseMeta #Fediverse #Mastodon #QuotePost #QuotePosts #QuoteTweet #QuoteTweets #QuoteToot #QuoteToots #QuoteBoost #QuoteBoosts #QuotedShares #CharacterLimit #CharacterLimits #CharacterLimitMeta #CWCharacterLimitMeta #500Characters #NotOnlyMastodon #FediverseIsNotMastodon #MastodonIsNotTheFediverse -
@craftxbox No, it's about more than every other Mastodon user thinking that the Fediverse equals Mastodon.
Most of the rest still think (or they think they know):- The Fediverse started with Mastodon. Gargron has invented the Fediverse.
- Everything that isn't Mastodon is either designed as a Mastodon add-on (Pixelfed, PeerTube etc.), or if it clearly isn't that, it's an intruder into the Mastodon Fediverse.
- If Mastodon doesn't have a feature, the Fediverse doesn't have that feature. This also means that if they succeed at keeping Mastodon from introducing a feature that they don't want, the whole Fediverse will never have it.
There are Mastodon users who wish for "the Fediverse" (they mean Mastodon because that's all they know) to introduce some feature, blissfully unaware that this feature is all over the Fediverse outside of Mastodon.
There are Mastodon users who "know for a fact" that Mastodon has just introduced quote-posts to the Fediverse, including an opt-out that works Fediverse-wide. They're blissfully unaware that a) Friendica and Hubzilla have been able to quote-post literally every single last public Mastodon toot since Mastodon's launch in 2016, and b) they both still are, opt-out or not.
And then there are those who spend two years or more thinking the entire Fediverse is a 500-character microblogging service, and who shit brix in sheer terror and hammer on the block button in sheer panic whenever a "toot" with more than 500 characters shows up in their timeline.
And, of course, those who try hard to force Mastodon's culture and Mastodon's rules, both of which are geared towards Mastodon and Mastodon only, upon users of server applications that are very very much not Mastodon. Because they think that Mastodon culture = Fediverse culture. And who, at the same time, fight everyone who suggests they do something that isn't inline with their perception of Mastodon's culture and rules.
#Long #LongPost #CWLong #CWLongPost #FediMeta #FediverseMeta #CWFediMeta #CWFediverseMeta #Fediverse #Mastodon #QuotePost #QuotePosts #QuoteTweet #QuoteTweets #QuoteToot #QuoteToots #QuoteBoost #QuoteBoosts #QuotedShares #CharacterLimit #CharacterLimits #CharacterLimitMeta #CWCharacterLimitMeta #500Characters #NotOnlyMastodon #FediverseIsNotMastodon #MastodonIsNotTheFediverse -
@craftxbox No, it's about more than every other Mastodon user thinking that the Fediverse equals Mastodon.
Most of the rest still think (or they think they know):- The Fediverse started with Mastodon. Gargron has invented the Fediverse.
- Everything that isn't Mastodon is either designed as a Mastodon add-on (Pixelfed, PeerTube etc.), or if it clearly isn't that, it's an intruder into the Mastodon Fediverse.
- If Mastodon doesn't have a feature, the Fediverse doesn't have that feature. This also means that if they succeed at keeping Mastodon from introducing a feature that they don't want, the whole Fediverse will never have it.
There are Mastodon users who wish for "the Fediverse" (they mean Mastodon because that's all they know) to introduce some feature, blissfully unaware that this feature is all over the Fediverse outside of Mastodon.
There are Mastodon users who "know for a fact" that Mastodon has just introduced quote-posts to the Fediverse, including an opt-out that works Fediverse-wide. They're blissfully unaware that a) Friendica and Hubzilla have been able to quote-post literally every single last public Mastodon toot since Mastodon's launch in 2016, and b) they both still are, opt-out or not.
And then there are those who spend two years or more thinking the entire Fediverse is a 500-character microblogging service, and who shit brix in sheer terror and hammer on the block button in sheer panic whenever a "toot" with more than 500 characters shows up in their timeline.
And, of course, those who try hard to force Mastodon's culture and Mastodon's rules, both of which are geared towards Mastodon and Mastodon only, upon users of server applications that are very very much not Mastodon. Because they think that Mastodon culture = Fediverse culture. And who, at the same time, fight everyone who suggests they do something that isn't inline with their perception of Mastodon's culture and rules.
#Long #LongPost #CWLong #CWLongPost #FediMeta #FediverseMeta #CWFediMeta #CWFediverseMeta #Fediverse #Mastodon #QuotePost #QuotePosts #QuoteTweet #QuoteTweets #QuoteToot #QuoteToots #QuoteBoost #QuoteBoosts #QuotedShares #CharacterLimit #CharacterLimits #CharacterLimitMeta #CWCharacterLimitMeta #500Characters #NotOnlyMastodon #FediverseIsNotMastodon #MastodonIsNotTheFediverse -
CW: Uncomfortable truth about the Fediverse that'll totally scare Mastodon users; CW: long (over 2,400 characters), Fediverse meta, Fediverse-beyond-Mastodon meta, quote-post meta, character limit meta
When you see it, you'll shit brix: The Hubzilla timeline.
The "it" that you're supposed to see is:- The Fediverse did, in fact, not start with Mastodon.
There was something in the Fediverse before Mastodon: Mistpark was there almost 6 years before Mastodon, Hubzilla was there 10 months before Mastodon.
Mastodon came into an already existing Fediverse with servers and users and content and a culture.
The Fediverse has never been only Mastodon. And it will never be. - The Fediverse had quote-posts almost 6 years before Mastodon.
(Accurate implication: The non-Mastodon Fediverse can quote-post any public Mastodon toot with no problems, and it has always been able to do so, for as long as Mastodon has been around.) - The Fediverse had groups almost 6 years before Mastodon which still doesn't even support groups.
- The Fediverse had better lists than Mastodon lists almost 6 years before Mastodon.
- The Fediverse had reply control almost 6 years before Mastodon where people are still waiting for some kind of reply control.
- The Fediverse had permissions almost 6 years before Mastodon where the concept of permissions is completely unknown.
- The Fediverse had no character limit to worry about almost 6 years before Mastodon came along with only 500 characters.
The Fediverse had 16,777,215 characters almost 6 years before Mastodon had 500 characters. - The Fediverse had full rich-text formatting almost 6 years before Mastodon.
The Fediverse could generate bold type, italics, underline,code blocks, bullet-point lists etc. without any Unicode trickery. Almost 6 years before Mastodon was there. And more than 12 years before Mastodon could even only display that stuff.
Although it should be blatantly obvious: This here is not a Mastodon toot. This post comes from Hubzilla directly to your Mastodon apps.
#Long #LongPost #CWLong #CWLongPost #FediMeta #FediverseMeta #CWFediMeta #CWFediverseMeta #Fediverse #Mastodon #Mistpark #Friendica #Hubzilla #FediverseCulture #QuotePost #QuotePosts #QuoteTweet #QuoteTweets #QuoteToot #QuoteToots #QuoteBoost #QuoteBoosts #QuotedShares #Groups #FediGroups #FediverseGroups #Lists #ReplyControl #Permissions #CharacterLimit #CharacterLimits #CharacterLimitMeta #CWCharacterLimitMeta #500Characters #TextFormatting #RichText #NotOnlyMastodon #FediverseIsNotMastodon #MastodonIsNotTheFediverse - The Fediverse did, in fact, not start with Mastodon.
-
CW: Uncomfortable truth about the Fediverse that'll totally scare Mastodon users; CW: long (over 2,400 characters), Fediverse meta, Fediverse-beyond-Mastodon meta, quote-post meta, character limit meta
When you see it, you'll shit brix: The Hubzilla timeline.
The "it" that you're supposed to see is:- The Fediverse did, in fact, not start with Mastodon.
There was something in the Fediverse before Mastodon: Mistpark was there almost 6 years before Mastodon, Hubzilla was there 10 months before Mastodon.
Mastodon came into an already existing Fediverse with servers and users and content and a culture.
The Fediverse has never been only Mastodon. And it will never be. - The Fediverse had quote-posts almost 6 years before Mastodon.
(Accurate implication: The non-Mastodon Fediverse can quote-post any public Mastodon toot with no problems, and it has always been able to do so, for as long as Mastodon has been around.) - The Fediverse had groups almost 6 years before Mastodon which still doesn't even support groups.
- The Fediverse had better lists than Mastodon lists almost 6 years before Mastodon.
- The Fediverse had reply control almost 6 years before Mastodon where people are still waiting for some kind of reply control.
- The Fediverse had permissions almost 6 years before Mastodon where the concept of permissions is completely unknown.
- The Fediverse had no character limit to worry about almost 6 years before Mastodon came along with only 500 characters.
The Fediverse had 16,777,215 characters almost 6 years before Mastodon had 500 characters. - The Fediverse had full rich-text formatting almost 6 years before Mastodon.
The Fediverse could generate bold type, italics, underline,code blocks, bullet-point lists etc. without any Unicode trickery. Almost 6 years before Mastodon was there. And more than 12 years before Mastodon could even only display that stuff.
Although it should be blatantly obvious: This here is not a Mastodon toot. This post comes from Hubzilla directly to your Mastodon apps.
#Long #LongPost #CWLong #CWLongPost #FediMeta #FediverseMeta #CWFediMeta #CWFediverseMeta #Fediverse #Mastodon #Mistpark #Friendica #Hubzilla #FediverseCulture #QuotePost #QuotePosts #QuoteTweet #QuoteTweets #QuoteToot #QuoteToots #QuoteBoost #QuoteBoosts #QuotedShares #Groups #FediGroups #FediverseGroups #Lists #ReplyControl #Permissions #CharacterLimit #CharacterLimits #CharacterLimitMeta #CWCharacterLimitMeta #500Characters #TextFormatting #RichText #NotOnlyMastodon #FediverseIsNotMastodon #MastodonIsNotTheFediverse - The Fediverse did, in fact, not start with Mastodon.
-
CW: Uncomfortable truth about the Fediverse that'll totally scare Mastodon users; CW: long (over 2,400 characters), Fediverse meta, Fediverse-beyond-Mastodon meta, quote-post meta, character limit meta
When you see it, you'll shit brix: The Hubzilla timeline.
The "it" that you're supposed to see is:- The Fediverse did, in fact, not start with Mastodon.
There was something in the Fediverse before Mastodon: Mistpark was there almost 6 years before Mastodon, Hubzilla was there 10 months before Mastodon.
Mastodon came into an already existing Fediverse with servers and users and content and a culture.
The Fediverse has never been only Mastodon. And it will never be. - The Fediverse had quote-posts almost 6 years before Mastodon.
(Accurate implication: The non-Mastodon Fediverse can quote-post any public Mastodon toot with no problems, and it has always been able to do so, for as long as Mastodon has been around.) - The Fediverse had groups almost 6 years before Mastodon which still doesn't even support groups.
- The Fediverse had better lists than Mastodon lists almost 6 years before Mastodon.
- The Fediverse had reply control almost 6 years before Mastodon where people are still waiting for some kind of reply control.
- The Fediverse had permissions almost 6 years before Mastodon where the concept of permissions is completely unknown.
- The Fediverse had no character limit to worry about almost 6 years before Mastodon came along with only 500 characters.
The Fediverse had 16,777,215 characters almost 6 years before Mastodon had 500 characters. - The Fediverse had full rich-text formatting almost 6 years before Mastodon.
The Fediverse could generate bold type, italics, underline,code blocks, bullet-point lists etc. without any Unicode trickery. Almost 6 years before Mastodon was there. And more than 12 years before Mastodon could even only display that stuff.
Although it should be blatantly obvious: This here is not a Mastodon toot. This post comes from Hubzilla directly to your Mastodon apps.
#Long #LongPost #CWLong #CWLongPost #FediMeta #FediverseMeta #CWFediMeta #CWFediverseMeta #Fediverse #Mastodon #Mistpark #Friendica #Hubzilla #FediverseCulture #QuotePost #QuotePosts #QuoteTweet #QuoteTweets #QuoteToot #QuoteToots #QuoteBoost #QuoteBoosts #QuotedShares #Groups #FediGroups #FediverseGroups #Lists #ReplyControl #Permissions #CharacterLimit #CharacterLimits #CharacterLimitMeta #CWCharacterLimitMeta #500Characters #TextFormatting #RichText #NotOnlyMastodon #FediverseIsNotMastodon #MastodonIsNotTheFediverse - The Fediverse did, in fact, not start with Mastodon.
-
CW: Uncomfortable truth about the Fediverse that'll totally scare Mastodon users; CW: long (over 2,400 characters), Fediverse meta, Fediverse-beyond-Mastodon meta, quote-post meta, character limit meta
When you see it, you'll shit brix: The Hubzilla timeline.
The "it" that you're supposed to see is:- The Fediverse did, in fact, not start with Mastodon.
There was something in the Fediverse before Mastodon: Mistpark was there almost 6 years before Mastodon, Hubzilla was there 10 months before Mastodon.
Mastodon came into an already existing Fediverse with servers and users and content and a culture.
The Fediverse has never been only Mastodon. And it will never be. - The Fediverse had quote-posts almost 6 years before Mastodon.
(Accurate implication: The non-Mastodon Fediverse can quote-post any public Mastodon toot with no problems, and it has always been able to do so, for as long as Mastodon has been around.) - The Fediverse had groups almost 6 years before Mastodon which still doesn't even support groups.
- The Fediverse had better lists than Mastodon lists almost 6 years before Mastodon.
- The Fediverse had reply control almost 6 years before Mastodon where people are still waiting for some kind of reply control.
- The Fediverse had permissions almost 6 years before Mastodon where the concept of permissions is completely unknown.
- The Fediverse had no character limit to worry about almost 6 years before Mastodon came along with only 500 characters.
The Fediverse had 16,777,215 characters almost 6 years before Mastodon had 500 characters. - The Fediverse had full rich-text formatting almost 6 years before Mastodon.
The Fediverse could generate bold type, italics, underline,code blocks, bullet-point lists etc. without any Unicode trickery. Almost 6 years before Mastodon was there. And more than 12 years before Mastodon could even only display that stuff.
Although it should be blatantly obvious: This here is not a Mastodon toot. This post comes from Hubzilla directly to your Mastodon apps.
#Long #LongPost #CWLong #CWLongPost #FediMeta #FediverseMeta #CWFediMeta #CWFediverseMeta #Fediverse #Mastodon #Mistpark #Friendica #Hubzilla #FediverseCulture #QuotePost #QuotePosts #QuoteTweet #QuoteTweets #QuoteToot #QuoteToots #QuoteBoost #QuoteBoosts #QuotedShares #Groups #FediGroups #FediverseGroups #Lists #ReplyControl #Permissions #CharacterLimit #CharacterLimits #CharacterLimitMeta #CWCharacterLimitMeta #500Characters #TextFormatting #RichText #NotOnlyMastodon #FediverseIsNotMastodon #MastodonIsNotTheFediverse - The Fediverse did, in fact, not start with Mastodon.
-
CW: Uncomfortable truth about the Fediverse that'll totally scare Mastodon users; CW: long (over 2,400 characters), Fediverse meta, Fediverse-beyond-Mastodon meta, quote-post meta, character limit meta
When you see it, you'll shit brix: The Hubzilla timeline.
The "it" that you're supposed to see is:- The Fediverse did, in fact, not start with Mastodon.
There was something in the Fediverse before Mastodon: Mistpark was there almost 6 years before Mastodon, Hubzilla was there 10 months before Mastodon.
Mastodon came into an already existing Fediverse with servers and users and content and a culture.
The Fediverse has never been only Mastodon. And it will never be. - The Fediverse had quote-posts almost 6 years before Mastodon.
(Accurate implication: The non-Mastodon Fediverse can quote-post any public Mastodon toot with no problems, and it has always been able to do so, for as long as Mastodon has been around.) - The Fediverse had groups almost 6 years before Mastodon which still doesn't even support groups.
- The Fediverse had better lists than Mastodon lists almost 6 years before Mastodon.
- The Fediverse had reply control almost 6 years before Mastodon where people are still waiting for some kind of reply control.
- The Fediverse had permissions almost 6 years before Mastodon where the concept of permissions is completely unknown.
- The Fediverse had no character limit to worry about almost 6 years before Mastodon came along with only 500 characters.
The Fediverse had 16,777,215 characters almost 6 years before Mastodon had 500 characters. - The Fediverse had full rich-text formatting almost 6 years before Mastodon.
The Fediverse could generate bold type, italics, underline,code blocks, bullet-point lists etc. without any Unicode trickery. Almost 6 years before Mastodon was there. And more than 12 years before Mastodon could even only display that stuff.
Although it should be blatantly obvious: This here is not a Mastodon toot. This post comes from Hubzilla directly to your Mastodon apps.
#Long #LongPost #CWLong #CWLongPost #FediMeta #FediverseMeta #CWFediMeta #CWFediverseMeta #Fediverse #Mastodon #Mistpark #Friendica #Hubzilla #FediverseCulture #QuotePost #QuotePosts #QuoteTweet #QuoteTweets #QuoteToot #QuoteToots #QuoteBoost #QuoteBoosts #QuotedShares #Groups #FediGroups #FediverseGroups #Lists #ReplyControl #Permissions #CharacterLimit #CharacterLimits #CharacterLimitMeta #CWCharacterLimitMeta #500Characters #TextFormatting #RichText #NotOnlyMastodon #FediverseIsNotMastodon #MastodonIsNotTheFediverse - The Fediverse did, in fact, not start with Mastodon.
-
CW: Uncomfortable truth about the Fediverse that'll totally scare Mastodon users; CW: long (over 2,400 characters), Fediverse meta, Fediverse-beyond-Mastodon meta, quote-post meta, character limit meta
When you see it, you'll shit brix: The Hubzilla timeline.
The "it" that you're supposed to see is:- The Fediverse did, in fact, not start with Mastodon.
There was something in the Fediverse before Mastodon: Mistpark was there almost 6 years before Mastodon, Hubzilla was there 10 months before Mastodon.
Mastodon came into an already existing Fediverse with servers and users and content and a culture.
The Fediverse has never been only Mastodon. And it will never be. - The Fediverse had quote-posts almost 6 years before Mastodon.
(Accurate implication: The non-Mastodon Fediverse can quote-post any public Mastodon toot with no problems, and it has always been able to do so, for as long as Mastodon has been around.) - The Fediverse had groups almost 6 years before Mastodon which still doesn't even support groups.
- The Fediverse had better lists than Mastodon lists almost 6 years before Mastodon.
- The Fediverse had reply control almost 6 years before Mastodon where people are still waiting for some kind of reply control.
- The Fediverse had permissions almost 6 years before Mastodon where the concept of permissions is completely unknown.
- The Fediverse had no character limit to worry about almost 6 years before Mastodon came along with only 500 characters.
The Fediverse had 16,777,215 characters almost 6 years before Mastodon had 500 characters. - The Fediverse had full rich-text formatting almost 6 years before Mastodon.
The Fediverse could generate bold type, italics, underline,code blocks, bullet-point lists etc. without any Unicode trickery. Almost 6 years before Mastodon was there. And more than 12 years before Mastodon could even only display that stuff.
Although it should be blatantly obvious: This here is not a Mastodon toot. This post comes from Hubzilla directly to your Mastodon apps.
#Long #LongPost #CWLong #CWLongPost #FediMeta #FediverseMeta #CWFediMeta #CWFediverseMeta #Fediverse #Mastodon #Mistpark #Friendica #Hubzilla #FediverseCulture #QuotePost #QuotePosts #QuoteTweet #QuoteTweets #QuoteToot #QuoteToots #QuoteBoost #QuoteBoosts #QuotedShares #Groups #FediGroups #FediverseGroups #Lists #ReplyControl #Permissions #CharacterLimit #CharacterLimits #CharacterLimitMeta #CWCharacterLimitMeta #500Characters #TextFormatting #RichText #NotOnlyMastodon #FediverseIsNotMastodon #MastodonIsNotTheFediverse - The Fediverse did, in fact, not start with Mastodon.
-
What should a person do when they are typing up a Mastodon thread, and it's already almost 400 words before you've started to wrap it up? I estimate this will be over 5 posts.
I need a blog. I doubt I will get any readers or subscribers, but at least I can use it as a journal. Hopefully my Fediverse followers would open a link with a good enough teaser.
Followers, what are you doing when you want to post something long?
-
@Hazelnoot My goal is to get alt-texts and image descriptions right. As right as possible.
My goal is to not be sanctioned and/or lectured by the alt-text police for allegedly being lazy and/or careless.
In order to achieve that, I must be ahead of everyone's requirements. Whatever these requirements may be.
But in order to achieve that, I must know their requirements. Everyone's requirements.
If you want me to follow your rules, I need to know your rules.
Right now, I'm probably vastly overcompliant with everyone's rules with only a few exceptions that I can't comply with (alt-texts must not be longer than 200 or 125 or 100 characters, posts in the Fediverse must not be longer than 500 characters, all of the text in an image must always be transcribed in the alt-text etc.).
This way, I hope that my image posts will stay in compliance with existing image description quality standards for a few years, and when they no longer are, they're so old that nobody demands I upgrade my image descriptions to then-current standards.
tl;dr: "Just do it" doesn't cut it. Just doing it is likely to get you sanctioned because you don't do it well enough. And something is no longer better than nothing.
#Long #LongPost #CWLong #CWLongPost #FediMeta #FediverseMeta #CWFediMeta #CWFediverseMeta #AltText #AltTextMeta #CWAltTextMeta #ImageDescription #ImageDescriptions #ImageDescriptionMeta #CWImageDescriptionMeta #AltTextPolice #CharacterLimit #CharacterLimits #CharacterLimitMeta #CWCharacterLimitMeta #500Characters #MastodonCulture -
@Hazelnoot My goal is to get alt-texts and image descriptions right. As right as possible.
My goal is to not be sanctioned and/or lectured by the alt-text police for allegedly being lazy and/or careless.
In order to achieve that, I must be ahead of everyone's requirements. Whatever these requirements may be.
But in order to achieve that, I must know their requirements. Everyone's requirements.
If you want me to follow your rules, I need to know your rules.
Right now, I'm probably vastly overcompliant with everyone's rules with only a few exceptions that I can't comply with (alt-texts must not be longer than 200 or 125 or 100 characters, posts in the Fediverse must not be longer than 500 characters, all of the text in an image must always be transcribed in the alt-text etc.).
This way, I hope that my image posts will stay in compliance with existing image description quality standards for a few years, and when they no longer are, they're so old that nobody demands I upgrade my image descriptions to then-current standards.
tl;dr: "Just do it" doesn't cut it. Just doing it is likely to get you sanctioned because you don't do it well enough. And something is no longer better than nothing.
#Long #LongPost #CWLong #CWLongPost #FediMeta #FediverseMeta #CWFediMeta #CWFediverseMeta #AltText #AltTextMeta #CWAltTextMeta #ImageDescription #ImageDescriptions #ImageDescriptionMeta #CWImageDescriptionMeta #AltTextPolice #CharacterLimit #CharacterLimits #CharacterLimitMeta #CWCharacterLimitMeta #500Characters #MastodonCulture -
@Hazelnoot My goal is to get alt-texts and image descriptions right. As right as possible.
My goal is to not be sanctioned and/or lectured by the alt-text police for allegedly being lazy and/or careless.
In order to achieve that, I must be ahead of everyone's requirements. Whatever these requirements may be.
But in order to achieve that, I must know their requirements. Everyone's requirements.
If you want me to follow your rules, I need to know your rules.
Right now, I'm probably vastly overcompliant with everyone's rules with only a few exceptions that I can't comply with (alt-texts must not be longer than 200 or 125 or 100 characters, posts in the Fediverse must not be longer than 500 characters, all of the text in an image must always be transcribed in the alt-text etc.).
This way, I hope that my image posts will stay in compliance with existing image description quality standards for a few years, and when they no longer are, they're so old that nobody demands I upgrade my image descriptions to then-current standards.
tl;dr: "Just do it" doesn't cut it. Just doing it is likely to get you sanctioned because you don't do it well enough. And something is no longer better than nothing.
#Long #LongPost #CWLong #CWLongPost #FediMeta #FediverseMeta #CWFediMeta #CWFediverseMeta #AltText #AltTextMeta #CWAltTextMeta #ImageDescription #ImageDescriptions #ImageDescriptionMeta #CWImageDescriptionMeta #AltTextPolice #CharacterLimit #CharacterLimits #CharacterLimitMeta #CWCharacterLimitMeta #500Characters #MastodonCulture -
@Hazelnoot My goal is to get alt-texts and image descriptions right. As right as possible.
My goal is to not be sanctioned and/or lectured by the alt-text police for allegedly being lazy and/or careless.
In order to achieve that, I must be ahead of everyone's requirements. Whatever these requirements may be.
But in order to achieve that, I must know their requirements. Everyone's requirements.
If you want me to follow your rules, I need to know your rules.
Right now, I'm probably vastly overcompliant with everyone's rules with only a few exceptions that I can't comply with (alt-texts must not be longer than 200 or 125 or 100 characters, posts in the Fediverse must not be longer than 500 characters, all of the text in an image must always be transcribed in the alt-text etc.).
This way, I hope that my image posts will stay in compliance with existing image description quality standards for a few years, and when they no longer are, they're so old that nobody demands I upgrade my image descriptions to then-current standards.
tl;dr: "Just do it" doesn't cut it. Just doing it is likely to get you sanctioned because you don't do it well enough. And something is no longer better than nothing.
#Long #LongPost #CWLong #CWLongPost #FediMeta #FediverseMeta #CWFediMeta #CWFediverseMeta #AltText #AltTextMeta #CWAltTextMeta #ImageDescription #ImageDescriptions #ImageDescriptionMeta #CWImageDescriptionMeta #AltTextPolice #CharacterLimit #CharacterLimits #CharacterLimitMeta #CWCharacterLimitMeta #500Characters #MastodonCulture -
@Hazelnoot My goal is to get alt-texts and image descriptions right. As right as possible.
My goal is to not be sanctioned and/or lectured by the alt-text police for allegedly being lazy and/or careless.
In order to achieve that, I must be ahead of everyone's requirements. Whatever these requirements may be.
But in order to achieve that, I must know their requirements. Everyone's requirements.
If you want me to follow your rules, I need to know your rules.
Right now, I'm probably vastly overcompliant with everyone's rules with only a few exceptions that I can't comply with (alt-texts must not be longer than 200 or 125 or 100 characters, posts in the Fediverse must not be longer than 500 characters, all of the text in an image must always be transcribed in the alt-text etc.).
This way, I hope that my image posts will stay in compliance with existing image description quality standards for a few years, and when they no longer are, they're so old that nobody demands I upgrade my image descriptions to then-current standards.
tl;dr: "Just do it" doesn't cut it. Just doing it is likely to get you sanctioned because you don't do it well enough. And something is no longer better than nothing.
#Long #LongPost #CWLong #CWLongPost #FediMeta #FediverseMeta #CWFediMeta #CWFediverseMeta #AltText #AltTextMeta #CWAltTextMeta #ImageDescription #ImageDescriptions #ImageDescriptionMeta #CWImageDescriptionMeta #AltTextPolice #CharacterLimit #CharacterLimits #CharacterLimitMeta #CWCharacterLimitMeta #500Characters #MastodonCulture -
@[18+!!] saph I'm not an artist, but I really need to know the definition of "helpful" in the context of "helpful alt-text". What are the requirements for alt-text to count as "helpful"?
It must be 100% accurate, I guess that's a given. This also means that it must be 100% written by hand as opposed to AI-generated.
But what are the minimum requirements in terms of details for an alt-text to be helpful?
Can alt-text be too long/too detailed to be helpful?
I'm going to limit my alt-texts to a maximum of 512 characters. Misskey, Sharkey, Iceshrimp-JS and the other Misskey forks automatically delete any alt-text that's longer than 512 characters, making it appear like I hadn't provided any alt-text to begin with, that's why. Newspaper scans aside, can alt-text with no more than 512 characters be too lacking in detail to be helpful?
What if, in addition to an alt-text with a maximum of 512 characters, I also provide a much longer and much more detailed image description in the post text? (My character limit is not 500, but over 16.7 million. I can post long descriptions with tens of thousands of characters in one piece, and I have done so in the past.)
Would that be acceptable to provide the details in description that do not fit into an alt-text of no more than 512 characters?
Or is that unacceptable because the description in the alt-text must be as detailed as required, and additional descriptions in the post don't count?
Or is that unacceptable because there must only be one description to each image, namely in the alt-text and only in the alt-text?
Or is that unacceptable because it makes my post longer than 500 characters?
Are explanations and other additional information about the image allowed in the post text? Because they are not allowed in the alt-text because some people cannot access alt-text.
Or must explanations etc. absolutely be in the alt-text in order for the alt-text to be "helpful" enough?
Must they even be only in the alt-text so that the post never exceeds 500 characters?
What if I can't describe and explain my images in a maximum of 512 characters? What if I can't describe and explain my images in a maximum of 1,500 characters either, but I absolutely must describe and explain them in the alt-text?
#Long #LongPost #CWLong #CWLongPost #FediMeta #FediverseMeta #CWFediMeta #CWFediverseMeta #AltText #AltTextMeta #CWAltTextMeta #ImageDescription #ImageDescriptions #ImageDescriptionMeta #CWImageDescriptionMeta #CharacterLimit #CharacterLimits #CharacterLimitMeta #CWCharacterLimitMeta #500Characters -
@[18+!!] saph I'm not an artist, but I really need to know the definition of "helpful" in the context of "helpful alt-text". What are the requirements for alt-text to count as "helpful"?
It must be 100% accurate, I guess that's a given. This also means that it must be 100% written by hand as opposed to AI-generated.
But what are the minimum requirements in terms of details for an alt-text to be helpful?
Can alt-text be too long/too detailed to be helpful?
I'm going to limit my alt-texts to a maximum of 512 characters. Misskey, Sharkey, Iceshrimp-JS and the other Misskey forks automatically delete any alt-text that's longer than 512 characters, making it appear like I hadn't provided any alt-text to begin with, that's why. Newspaper scans aside, can alt-text with no more than 512 characters be too lacking in detail to be helpful?
What if, in addition to an alt-text with a maximum of 512 characters, I also provide a much longer and much more detailed image description in the post text? (My character limit is not 500, but over 16.7 million. I can post long descriptions with tens of thousands of characters in one piece, and I have done so in the past.)
Would that be acceptable to provide the details in description that do not fit into an alt-text of no more than 512 characters?
Or is that unacceptable because the description in the alt-text must be as detailed as required, and additional descriptions in the post don't count?
Or is that unacceptable because there must only be one description to each image, namely in the alt-text and only in the alt-text?
Or is that unacceptable because it makes my post longer than 500 characters?
Are explanations and other additional information about the image allowed in the post text? Because they are not allowed in the alt-text because some people cannot access alt-text.
Or must explanations etc. absolutely be in the alt-text in order for the alt-text to be "helpful" enough?
Must they even be only in the alt-text so that the post never exceeds 500 characters?
What if I can't describe and explain my images in a maximum of 512 characters? What if I can't describe and explain my images in a maximum of 1,500 characters either, but I absolutely must describe and explain them in the alt-text?
#Long #LongPost #CWLong #CWLongPost #FediMeta #FediverseMeta #CWFediMeta #CWFediverseMeta #AltText #AltTextMeta #CWAltTextMeta #ImageDescription #ImageDescriptions #ImageDescriptionMeta #CWImageDescriptionMeta #CharacterLimit #CharacterLimits #CharacterLimitMeta #CWCharacterLimitMeta #500Characters -
@[18+!!] saph I'm not an artist, but I really need to know the definition of "helpful" in the context of "helpful alt-text". What are the requirements for alt-text to count as "helpful"?
It must be 100% accurate, I guess that's a given. This also means that it must be 100% written by hand as opposed to AI-generated.
But what are the minimum requirements in terms of details for an alt-text to be helpful?
Can alt-text be too long/too detailed to be helpful?
I'm going to limit my alt-texts to a maximum of 512 characters. Misskey, Sharkey, Iceshrimp-JS and the other Misskey forks automatically delete any alt-text that's longer than 512 characters, making it appear like I hadn't provided any alt-text to begin with, that's why. Newspaper scans aside, can alt-text with no more than 512 characters be too lacking in detail to be helpful?
What if, in addition to an alt-text with a maximum of 512 characters, I also provide a much longer and much more detailed image description in the post text? (My character limit is not 500, but over 16.7 million. I can post long descriptions with tens of thousands of characters in one piece, and I have done so in the past.)
Would that be acceptable to provide the details in description that do not fit into an alt-text of no more than 512 characters?
Or is that unacceptable because the description in the alt-text must be as detailed as required, and additional descriptions in the post don't count?
Or is that unacceptable because there must only be one description to each image, namely in the alt-text and only in the alt-text?
Or is that unacceptable because it makes my post longer than 500 characters?
Are explanations and other additional information about the image allowed in the post text? Because they are not allowed in the alt-text because some people cannot access alt-text.
Or must explanations etc. absolutely be in the alt-text in order for the alt-text to be "helpful" enough?
Must they even be only in the alt-text so that the post never exceeds 500 characters?
What if I can't describe and explain my images in a maximum of 512 characters? What if I can't describe and explain my images in a maximum of 1,500 characters either, but I absolutely must describe and explain them in the alt-text?
#Long #LongPost #CWLong #CWLongPost #FediMeta #FediverseMeta #CWFediMeta #CWFediverseMeta #AltText #AltTextMeta #CWAltTextMeta #ImageDescription #ImageDescriptions #ImageDescriptionMeta #CWImageDescriptionMeta #CharacterLimit #CharacterLimits #CharacterLimitMeta #CWCharacterLimitMeta #500Characters -
@[18+!!] saph I'm not an artist, but I really need to know the definition of "helpful" in the context of "helpful alt-text". What are the requirements for alt-text to count as "helpful"?
It must be 100% accurate, I guess that's a given. This also means that it must be 100% written by hand as opposed to AI-generated.
But what are the minimum requirements in terms of details for an alt-text to be helpful?
Can alt-text be too long/too detailed to be helpful?
I'm going to limit my alt-texts to a maximum of 512 characters. Misskey, Sharkey, Iceshrimp-JS and the other Misskey forks automatically delete any alt-text that's longer than 512 characters, making it appear like I hadn't provided any alt-text to begin with, that's why. Newspaper scans aside, can alt-text with no more than 512 characters be too lacking in detail to be helpful?
What if, in addition to an alt-text with a maximum of 512 characters, I also provide a much longer and much more detailed image description in the post text? (My character limit is not 500, but over 16.7 million. I can post long descriptions with tens of thousands of characters in one piece, and I have done so in the past.)
Would that be acceptable to provide the details in description that do not fit into an alt-text of no more than 512 characters?
Or is that unacceptable because the description in the alt-text must be as detailed as required, and additional descriptions in the post don't count?
Or is that unacceptable because there must only be one description to each image, namely in the alt-text and only in the alt-text?
Or is that unacceptable because it makes my post longer than 500 characters?
Are explanations and other additional information about the image allowed in the post text? Because they are not allowed in the alt-text because some people cannot access alt-text.
Or must explanations etc. absolutely be in the alt-text in order for the alt-text to be "helpful" enough?
Must they even be only in the alt-text so that the post never exceeds 500 characters?
What if I can't describe and explain my images in a maximum of 512 characters? What if I can't describe and explain my images in a maximum of 1,500 characters either, but I absolutely must describe and explain them in the alt-text?
#Long #LongPost #CWLong #CWLongPost #FediMeta #FediverseMeta #CWFediMeta #CWFediverseMeta #AltText #AltTextMeta #CWAltTextMeta #ImageDescription #ImageDescriptions #ImageDescriptionMeta #CWImageDescriptionMeta #CharacterLimit #CharacterLimits #CharacterLimitMeta #CWCharacterLimitMeta #500Characters -
@[18+!!] saph I'm not an artist, but I really need to know the definition of "helpful" in the context of "helpful alt-text". What are the requirements for alt-text to count as "helpful"?
It must be 100% accurate, I guess that's a given. This also means that it must be 100% written by hand as opposed to AI-generated.
But what are the minimum requirements in terms of details for an alt-text to be helpful?
Can alt-text be too long/too detailed to be helpful?
I'm going to limit my alt-texts to a maximum of 512 characters. Misskey, Sharkey, Iceshrimp-JS and the other Misskey forks automatically delete any alt-text that's longer than 512 characters, making it appear like I hadn't provided any alt-text to begin with, that's why. Newspaper scans aside, can alt-text with no more than 512 characters be too lacking in detail to be helpful?
What if, in addition to an alt-text with a maximum of 512 characters, I also provide a much longer and much more detailed image description in the post text? (My character limit is not 500, but over 16.7 million. I can post long descriptions with tens of thousands of characters in one piece, and I have done so in the past.)
Would that be acceptable to provide the details in description that do not fit into an alt-text of no more than 512 characters?
Or is that unacceptable because the description in the alt-text must be as detailed as required, and additional descriptions in the post don't count?
Or is that unacceptable because there must only be one description to each image, namely in the alt-text and only in the alt-text?
Or is that unacceptable because it makes my post longer than 500 characters?
Are explanations and other additional information about the image allowed in the post text? Because they are not allowed in the alt-text because some people cannot access alt-text.
Or must explanations etc. absolutely be in the alt-text in order for the alt-text to be "helpful" enough?
Must they even be only in the alt-text so that the post never exceeds 500 characters?
What if I can't describe and explain my images in a maximum of 512 characters? What if I can't describe and explain my images in a maximum of 1,500 characters either, but I absolutely must describe and explain them in the alt-text?
#Long #LongPost #CWLong #CWLongPost #FediMeta #FediverseMeta #CWFediMeta #CWFediverseMeta #AltText #AltTextMeta #CWAltTextMeta #ImageDescription #ImageDescriptions #ImageDescriptionMeta #CWImageDescriptionMeta #CharacterLimit #CharacterLimits #CharacterLimitMeta #CWCharacterLimitMeta #500Characters -
@hosh The alt-text police of the Mastodon Home Owners' Association (Mastodon HOA) have a tendency to be overzealous. And they don't talk to each other. They all act for themselves as lone wolves with exactly no coordination amongst each other whatsoever. You never know what kinds of rules they whip up for themselves.
Chances are that they only let image descriptions count that come directly with the image. If they acknowledge an image description outside the alt-text, it must be in the post itself. Not as an external link, but the description text itself.
Besides, at least some in the Mastodon HOA have problems with external links. And I don't just mean that they don't trust embedded links whose URL they can't see in plain sight, the kind that Hubzilla can create and Mastodon can't (not that Hubzilla couldn't fake a plain-sight link by embedding a different URL than the visible).
I don't mean either that probably a majority of Mastodon users don't even recognise embedded links without a visible URL as such because they don't know that such a thing can exist in the Fediverse, because Mastodon can't make them.
No, what I mean is the notion that external links for explanations are inherently bad from an accessibility point of view. "Mastodon" (as in how Mastodon users experience the Fediverse, i.e. the Mastodon Web UI or any of the popular mobile phone apps) is sufficiently accessible. But the Web outside of "Mastodon" (same definition again) may not be accessible enough.
A few years ago, I've literally read a Mastodon toot in which someone said that explanations must not be linked to. Linked websites have a risk of not being accessible. Explanations must always be directly in the same post. Apparently, they thought that everything and anything can be explained and broken down until everyone understands it within 500 characters.
This is also why Mastodon users tend to explain their images in the alt-text. It's only there where they have at least halfway enough characters for an explanation, 1,500 per image as opposed to usually only 500 in the post text. (On Mastodon, much unlike Hubzilla, the alt-text is a separate database field that exists separately for each of the up to four images per message.)
That is, explanations must never go into the alt-text because there are people who cannot open alt-texts to read them. But nobody on Mastodon knows that.
It should be obvious that what counts for explanations counts for visual descriptions just as well.
And in fact, regarding Hubzilla articles, they're actually right. I've once pointed an actually blind screen reader user to an article on my Hubzilla channel. She said she couldn't even navigate the Web interface. She literally couldn't get to the text body of the article to have it read out by her screen reader.
Hubzilla's Web interface, no matter which app is opened, is not accessible. It does not work with screen readers. It's largely still stuck in 2012 when nobdy made any ruckus about the accessibility of hobbyist Web projects.
The only reason why at least some blind or visually-impaired users can read our Hubzilla posts and comments and DMs is because they're all on Mastodon, and they read our content either on Mastodon's Web UI or a Mastodon app that supports screen readers. But they do not read our content at the source. Because they can't.
I actually took into consideration linking to my long image descriptions. But my idea was not to link to a Hubzilla article, nor to a Hubzilla wiki or a Hubzilla card. No, my idea was to write a plain HTML document, upload it to my file space and link to that.
I've dropped that idea for various reasons:- Generally, still, external links are frowned upon.
- I don't know if plain HTML is accessible without a CSS. And I can't add a CSS to this HTML if the HTML document is not served to the recipient by a Web server, but by a file server.
- I don't know how Google Chrome on Android or Safari on an iPhone will react when they access an HTML document on a file space. Will they display it as a website? Or will they download it onto the device as a file without opening it because, again, it is served to them not by a Web server, but by a file server?
- Mobile users dislike opening websites from apps because they dislike their browser popping open. And on Mastodon, much unlike Hubzilla, almost everyone is on a phone and a dedicated app almost all the time.
- This also means that mobile users would have the image and the description in two separate apps. The image in their Mastodon app, the description in their browser.
- I would need much more description.
Right now, when I have multiple images, my long descriptions consist of a preamble that contains all necessary explanations and, if applicable, visual descriptions of elements that are common to all images. The individual descriptions for each image follow.
But if I had one image description file per image, then each image description would need the whole preamble included. I can't just add the preamble to the first description file.
What if someone opens the third description file first? They'll only have a very incomplete description. And linking to the first description file is inconvenient. I would have to know the URL of the first file before completing and uploading the other files because I'd have to include the URL of the first file in them. And the users would have to have three documents open (the image post, the description of the image they're interested in, the description of the first image with the preamble) just to experience one image. Spread across two phone apps.
And that's why I can't put my additional long description in an external document.
#Long #LongPost #CWLong #CWLongPost #FediMeta #FediverseMeta #CWFediMeta #CWFediverseMeta #AltText #AltTextMeta #CWAltTextMeta #ImageDescription #ImageDescriptions #ImageDescriptionMeta #CWImageDescriptionMeta #AltTextPolice #MastodonHOA #CharacterLimit #CharacterLimits #CharacterLimitMeta #CWCharacterLimitMeta #500Characters #MastodonCulture -
@hosh The alt-text police of the Mastodon Home Owners' Association (Mastodon HOA) have a tendency to be overzealous. And they don't talk to each other. They all act for themselves as lone wolves with exactly no coordination amongst each other whatsoever. You never know what kinds of rules they whip up for themselves.
Chances are that they only let image descriptions count that come directly with the image. If they acknowledge an image description outside the alt-text, it must be in the post itself. Not as an external link, but the description text itself.
Besides, at least some in the Mastodon HOA have problems with external links. And I don't just mean that they don't trust embedded links whose URL they can't see in plain sight, the kind that Hubzilla can create and Mastodon can't (not that Hubzilla couldn't fake a plain-sight link by embedding a different URL than the visible).
I don't mean either that probably a majority of Mastodon users don't even recognise embedded links without a visible URL as such because they don't know that such a thing can exist in the Fediverse, because Mastodon can't make them.
No, what I mean is the notion that external links for explanations are inherently bad from an accessibility point of view. "Mastodon" (as in how Mastodon users experience the Fediverse, i.e. the Mastodon Web UI or any of the popular mobile phone apps) is sufficiently accessible. But the Web outside of "Mastodon" (same definition again) may not be accessible enough.
A few years ago, I've literally read a Mastodon toot in which someone said that explanations must not be linked to. Linked websites have a risk of not being accessible. Explanations must always be directly in the same post. Apparently, they thought that everything and anything can be explained and broken down until everyone understands it within 500 characters.
This is also why Mastodon users tend to explain their images in the alt-text. It's only there where they have at least halfway enough characters for an explanation, 1,500 per image as opposed to usually only 500 in the post text. (On Mastodon, much unlike Hubzilla, the alt-text is a separate database field that exists separately for each of the up to four images per message.)
That is, explanations must never go into the alt-text because there are people who cannot open alt-texts to read them. But nobody on Mastodon knows that.
It should be obvious that what counts for explanations counts for visual descriptions just as well.
And in fact, regarding Hubzilla articles, they're actually right. I've once pointed an actually blind screen reader user to an article on my Hubzilla channel. She said she couldn't even navigate the Web interface. She literally couldn't get to the text body of the article to have it read out by her screen reader.
Hubzilla's Web interface, no matter which app is opened, is not accessible. It does not work with screen readers. It's largely still stuck in 2012 when nobdy made any ruckus about the accessibility of hobbyist Web projects.
The only reason why at least some blind or visually-impaired users can read our Hubzilla posts and comments and DMs is because they're all on Mastodon, and they read our content either on Mastodon's Web UI or a Mastodon app that supports screen readers. But they do not read our content at the source. Because they can't.
I actually took into consideration linking to my long image descriptions. But my idea was not to link to a Hubzilla article, nor to a Hubzilla wiki or a Hubzilla card. No, my idea was to write a plain HTML document, upload it to my file space and link to that.
I've dropped that idea for various reasons:- Generally, still, external links are frowned upon.
- I don't know if plain HTML is accessible without a CSS. And I can't add a CSS to this HTML if the HTML document is not served to the recipient by a Web server, but by a file server.
- I don't know how Google Chrome on Android or Safari on an iPhone will react when they access an HTML document on a file space. Will they display it as a website? Or will they download it onto the device as a file without opening it because, again, it is served to them not by a Web server, but by a file server?
- Mobile users dislike opening websites from apps because they dislike their browser popping open. And on Mastodon, much unlike Hubzilla, almost everyone is on a phone and a dedicated app almost all the time.
- This also means that mobile users would have the image and the description in two separate apps. The image in their Mastodon app, the description in their browser.
- I would need much more description.
Right now, when I have multiple images, my long descriptions consist of a preamble that contains all necessary explanations and, if applicable, visual descriptions of elements that are common to all images. The individual descriptions for each image follow.
But if I had one image description file per image, then each image description would need the whole preamble included. I can't just add the preamble to the first description file.
What if someone opens the third description file first? They'll only have a very incomplete description. And linking to the first description file is inconvenient. I would have to know the URL of the first file before completing and uploading the other files because I'd have to include the URL of the first file in them. And the users would have to have three documents open (the image post, the description of the image they're interested in, the description of the first image with the preamble) just to experience one image. Spread across two phone apps.
And that's why I can't put my additional long description in an external document.
#Long #LongPost #CWLong #CWLongPost #FediMeta #FediverseMeta #CWFediMeta #CWFediverseMeta #AltText #AltTextMeta #CWAltTextMeta #ImageDescription #ImageDescriptions #ImageDescriptionMeta #CWImageDescriptionMeta #AltTextPolice #MastodonHOA #CharacterLimit #CharacterLimits #CharacterLimitMeta #CWCharacterLimitMeta #500Characters #MastodonCulture -
@hosh The alt-text police of the Mastodon Home Owners' Association (Mastodon HOA) have a tendency to be overzealous. And they don't talk to each other. They all act for themselves as lone wolves with exactly no coordination amongst each other whatsoever. You never know what kinds of rules they whip up for themselves.
Chances are that they only let image descriptions count that come directly with the image. If they acknowledge an image description outside the alt-text, it must be in the post itself. Not as an external link, but the description text itself.
Besides, at least some in the Mastodon HOA have problems with external links. And I don't just mean that they don't trust embedded links whose URL they can't see in plain sight, the kind that Hubzilla can create and Mastodon can't (not that Hubzilla couldn't fake a plain-sight link by embedding a different URL than the visible).
I don't mean either that probably a majority of Mastodon users don't even recognise embedded links without a visible URL as such because they don't know that such a thing can exist in the Fediverse, because Mastodon can't make them.
No, what I mean is the notion that external links for explanations are inherently bad from an accessibility point of view. "Mastodon" (as in how Mastodon users experience the Fediverse, i.e. the Mastodon Web UI or any of the popular mobile phone apps) is sufficiently accessible. But the Web outside of "Mastodon" (same definition again) may not be accessible enough.
A few years ago, I've literally read a Mastodon toot in which someone said that explanations must not be linked to. Linked websites have a risk of not being accessible. Explanations must always be directly in the same post. Apparently, they thought that everything and anything can be explained and broken down until everyone understands it within 500 characters.
This is also why Mastodon users tend to explain their images in the alt-text. It's only there where they have at least halfway enough characters for an explanation, 1,500 per image as opposed to usually only 500 in the post text. (On Mastodon, much unlike Hubzilla, the alt-text is a separate database field that exists separately for each of the up to four images per message.)
That is, explanations must never go into the alt-text because there are people who cannot open alt-texts to read them. But nobody on Mastodon knows that.
It should be obvious that what counts for explanations counts for visual descriptions just as well.
And in fact, regarding Hubzilla articles, they're actually right. I've once pointed an actually blind screen reader user to an article on my Hubzilla channel. She said she couldn't even navigate the Web interface. She literally couldn't get to the text body of the article to have it read out by her screen reader.
Hubzilla's Web interface, no matter which app is opened, is not accessible. It does not work with screen readers. It's largely still stuck in 2012 when nobdy made any ruckus about the accessibility of hobbyist Web projects.
The only reason why at least some blind or visually-impaired users can read our Hubzilla posts and comments and DMs is because they're all on Mastodon, and they read our content either on Mastodon's Web UI or a Mastodon app that supports screen readers. But they do not read our content at the source. Because they can't.
I actually took into consideration linking to my long image descriptions. But my idea was not to link to a Hubzilla article, nor to a Hubzilla wiki or a Hubzilla card. No, my idea was to write a plain HTML document, upload it to my file space and link to that.
I've dropped that idea for various reasons:- Generally, still, external links are frowned upon.
- I don't know if plain HTML is accessible without a CSS. And I can't add a CSS to this HTML if the HTML document is not served to the recipient by a Web server, but by a file server.
- I don't know how Google Chrome on Android or Safari on an iPhone will react when they access an HTML document on a file space. Will they display it as a website? Or will they download it onto the device as a file without opening it because, again, it is served to them not by a Web server, but by a file server?
- Mobile users dislike opening websites from apps because they dislike their browser popping open. And on Mastodon, much unlike Hubzilla, almost everyone is on a phone and a dedicated app almost all the time.
- This also means that mobile users would have the image and the description in two separate apps. The image in their Mastodon app, the description in their browser.
- I would need much more description.
Right now, when I have multiple images, my long descriptions consist of a preamble that contains all necessary explanations and, if applicable, visual descriptions of elements that are common to all images. The individual descriptions for each image follow.
But if I had one image description file per image, then each image description would need the whole preamble included. I can't just add the preamble to the first description file.
What if someone opens the third description file first? They'll only have a very incomplete description. And linking to the first description file is inconvenient. I would have to know the URL of the first file before completing and uploading the other files because I'd have to include the URL of the first file in them. And the users would have to have three documents open (the image post, the description of the image they're interested in, the description of the first image with the preamble) just to experience one image. Spread across two phone apps.
And that's why I can't put my additional long description in an external document.
#Long #LongPost #CWLong #CWLongPost #FediMeta #FediverseMeta #CWFediMeta #CWFediverseMeta #AltText #AltTextMeta #CWAltTextMeta #ImageDescription #ImageDescriptions #ImageDescriptionMeta #CWImageDescriptionMeta #AltTextPolice #MastodonHOA #CharacterLimit #CharacterLimits #CharacterLimitMeta #CWCharacterLimitMeta #500Characters #MastodonCulture -
@hosh The alt-text police of the Mastodon Home Owners' Association (Mastodon HOA) have a tendency to be overzealous. And they don't talk to each other. They all act for themselves as lone wolves with exactly no coordination amongst each other whatsoever. You never know what kinds of rules they whip up for themselves.
Chances are that they only let image descriptions count that come directly with the image. If they acknowledge an image description outside the alt-text, it must be in the post itself. Not as an external link, but the description text itself.
Besides, at least some in the Mastodon HOA have problems with external links. And I don't just mean that they don't trust embedded links whose URL they can't see in plain sight, the kind that Hubzilla can create and Mastodon can't (not that Hubzilla couldn't fake a plain-sight link by embedding a different URL than the visible).
I don't mean either that probably a majority of Mastodon users don't even recognise embedded links without a visible URL as such because they don't know that such a thing can exist in the Fediverse, because Mastodon can't make them.
No, what I mean is the notion that external links for explanations are inherently bad from an accessibility point of view. "Mastodon" (as in how Mastodon users experience the Fediverse, i.e. the Mastodon Web UI or any of the popular mobile phone apps) is sufficiently accessible. But the Web outside of "Mastodon" (same definition again) may not be accessible enough.
A few years ago, I've literally read a Mastodon toot in which someone said that explanations must not be linked to. Linked websites have a risk of not being accessible. Explanations must always be directly in the same post. Apparently, they thought that everything and anything can be explained and broken down until everyone understands it within 500 characters.
This is also why Mastodon users tend to explain their images in the alt-text. It's only there where they have at least halfway enough characters for an explanation, 1,500 per image as opposed to usually only 500 in the post text. (On Mastodon, much unlike Hubzilla, the alt-text is a separate database field that exists separately for each of the up to four images per message.)
That is, explanations must never go into the alt-text because there are people who cannot open alt-texts to read them. But nobody on Mastodon knows that.
It should be obvious that what counts for explanations counts for visual descriptions just as well.
And in fact, regarding Hubzilla articles, they're actually right. I've once pointed an actually blind screen reader user to an article on my Hubzilla channel. She said she couldn't even navigate the Web interface. She literally couldn't get to the text body of the article to have it read out by her screen reader.
Hubzilla's Web interface, no matter which app is opened, is not accessible. It does not work with screen readers. It's largely still stuck in 2012 when nobdy made any ruckus about the accessibility of hobbyist Web projects.
The only reason why at least some blind or visually-impaired users can read our Hubzilla posts and comments and DMs is because they're all on Mastodon, and they read our content either on Mastodon's Web UI or a Mastodon app that supports screen readers. But they do not read our content at the source. Because they can't.
I actually took into consideration linking to my long image descriptions. But my idea was not to link to a Hubzilla article, nor to a Hubzilla wiki or a Hubzilla card. No, my idea was to write a plain HTML document, upload it to my file space and link to that.
I've dropped that idea for various reasons:- Generally, still, external links are frowned upon.
- I don't know if plain HTML is accessible without a CSS. And I can't add a CSS to this HTML if the HTML document is not served to the recipient by a Web server, but by a file server.
- I don't know how Google Chrome on Android or Safari on an iPhone will react when they access an HTML document on a file space. Will they display it as a website? Or will they download it onto the device as a file without opening it because, again, it is served to them not by a Web server, but by a file server?
- Mobile users dislike opening websites from apps because they dislike their browser popping open. And on Mastodon, much unlike Hubzilla, almost everyone is on a phone and a dedicated app almost all the time.
- This also means that mobile users would have the image and the description in two separate apps. The image in their Mastodon app, the description in their browser.
- I would need much more description.
Right now, when I have multiple images, my long descriptions consist of a preamble that contains all necessary explanations and, if applicable, visual descriptions of elements that are common to all images. The individual descriptions for each image follow.
But if I had one image description file per image, then each image description would need the whole preamble included. I can't just add the preamble to the first description file.
What if someone opens the third description file first? They'll only have a very incomplete description. And linking to the first description file is inconvenient. I would have to know the URL of the first file before completing and uploading the other files because I'd have to include the URL of the first file in them. And the users would have to have three documents open (the image post, the description of the image they're interested in, the description of the first image with the preamble) just to experience one image. Spread across two phone apps.
And that's why I can't put my additional long description in an external document.
#Long #LongPost #CWLong #CWLongPost #FediMeta #FediverseMeta #CWFediMeta #CWFediverseMeta #AltText #AltTextMeta #CWAltTextMeta #ImageDescription #ImageDescriptions #ImageDescriptionMeta #CWImageDescriptionMeta #AltTextPolice #MastodonHOA #CharacterLimit #CharacterLimits #CharacterLimitMeta #CWCharacterLimitMeta #500Characters #MastodonCulture -
@hosh The alt-text police of the Mastodon Home Owners' Association (Mastodon HOA) have a tendency to be overzealous. And they don't talk to each other. They all act for themselves as lone wolves with exactly no coordination amongst each other whatsoever. You never know what kinds of rules they whip up for themselves.
Chances are that they only let image descriptions count that come directly with the image. If they acknowledge an image description outside the alt-text, it must be in the post itself. Not as an external link, but the description text itself.
Besides, at least some in the Mastodon HOA have problems with external links. And I don't just mean that they don't trust embedded links whose URL they can't see in plain sight, the kind that Hubzilla can create and Mastodon can't (not that Hubzilla couldn't fake a plain-sight link by embedding a different URL than the visible).
I don't mean either that probably a majority of Mastodon users don't even recognise embedded links without a visible URL as such because they don't know that such a thing can exist in the Fediverse, because Mastodon can't make them.
No, what I mean is the notion that external links for explanations are inherently bad from an accessibility point of view. "Mastodon" (as in how Mastodon users experience the Fediverse, i.e. the Mastodon Web UI or any of the popular mobile phone apps) is sufficiently accessible. But the Web outside of "Mastodon" (same definition again) may not be accessible enough.
A few years ago, I've literally read a Mastodon toot in which someone said that explanations must not be linked to. Linked websites have a risk of not being accessible. Explanations must always be directly in the same post. Apparently, they thought that everything and anything can be explained and broken down until everyone understands it within 500 characters.
This is also why Mastodon users tend to explain their images in the alt-text. It's only there where they have at least halfway enough characters for an explanation, 1,500 per image as opposed to usually only 500 in the post text. (On Mastodon, much unlike Hubzilla, the alt-text is a separate database field that exists separately for each of the up to four images per message.)
That is, explanations must never go into the alt-text because there are people who cannot open alt-texts to read them. But nobody on Mastodon knows that.
It should be obvious that what counts for explanations counts for visual descriptions just as well.
And in fact, regarding Hubzilla articles, they're actually right. I've once pointed an actually blind screen reader user to an article on my Hubzilla channel. She said she couldn't even navigate the Web interface. She literally couldn't get to the text body of the article to have it read out by her screen reader.
Hubzilla's Web interface, no matter which app is opened, is not accessible. It does not work with screen readers. It's largely still stuck in 2012 when nobdy made any ruckus about the accessibility of hobbyist Web projects.
The only reason why at least some blind or visually-impaired users can read our Hubzilla posts and comments and DMs is because they're all on Mastodon, and they read our content either on Mastodon's Web UI or a Mastodon app that supports screen readers. But they do not read our content at the source. Because they can't.
I actually took into consideration linking to my long image descriptions. But my idea was not to link to a Hubzilla article, nor to a Hubzilla wiki or a Hubzilla card. No, my idea was to write a plain HTML document, upload it to my file space and link to that.
I've dropped that idea for various reasons:- Generally, still, external links are frowned upon.
- I don't know if plain HTML is accessible without a CSS. And I can't add a CSS to this HTML if the HTML document is not served to the recipient by a Web server, but by a file server.
- I don't know how Google Chrome on Android or Safari on an iPhone will react when they access an HTML document on a file space. Will they display it as a website? Or will they download it onto the device as a file without opening it because, again, it is served to them not by a Web server, but by a file server?
- Mobile users dislike opening websites from apps because they dislike their browser popping open. And on Mastodon, much unlike Hubzilla, almost everyone is on a phone and a dedicated app almost all the time.
- This also means that mobile users would have the image and the description in two separate apps. The image in their Mastodon app, the description in their browser.
- I would need much more description.
Right now, when I have multiple images, my long descriptions consist of a preamble that contains all necessary explanations and, if applicable, visual descriptions of elements that are common to all images. The individual descriptions for each image follow.
But if I had one image description file per image, then each image description would need the whole preamble included. I can't just add the preamble to the first description file.
What if someone opens the third description file first? They'll only have a very incomplete description. And linking to the first description file is inconvenient. I would have to know the URL of the first file before completing and uploading the other files because I'd have to include the URL of the first file in them. And the users would have to have three documents open (the image post, the description of the image they're interested in, the description of the first image with the preamble) just to experience one image. Spread across two phone apps.
And that's why I can't put my additional long description in an external document.
#Long #LongPost #CWLong #CWLongPost #FediMeta #FediverseMeta #CWFediMeta #CWFediverseMeta #AltText #AltTextMeta #CWAltTextMeta #ImageDescription #ImageDescriptions #ImageDescriptionMeta #CWImageDescriptionMeta #AltTextPolice #MastodonHOA #CharacterLimit #CharacterLimits #CharacterLimitMeta #CWCharacterLimitMeta #500Characters #MastodonCulture -
CW: Long posts vs insufficiently described images: I can't win either way; CW: long (over 3,500 characters), Fediverse meta, Fediverse-beyond-Mastodon meta, alt-text meta, image description meta, content warning meta, character limit meta
On the one hand, I have to go out of my way and write two image descriptions for each one of my original images. One is short and goes into the alt-text, and I'm going to limit all my future alt-text to a maximum of 512 characters (otherwise users on Misskey, Sharkey etc. will believe I haven't written any alt-text because they won't receive any due to a bug).
The other one is enormous degrees of magnitudes longer than anything most Fediverse users have ever read in the Fediverse. It also contains all explanations necessary to understand the image and its description, and if there's text anywhere within the borders of the image, readable or not, it contains verbatim transcripts of said text.
The nature of my original images requires such long descriptions. Besides, the only way to really be safe from the alt-text police of the Mastodon HOA is to overcomply with whatever minimum standards for good image descriptions anyone of them may have.
On the other hand, the self-same Mastodon HOA is likely to sanction me for the self-same posts. The reason: The posts are way too long. They exceed the limit of 500 characters that's so deeply engrained into Mastodon's culture that many Mastodonians are eager to defend it. Even if I hide them behind a summary with a content warning about the post being long. If I were to appease these Mastodonians, I'd have to underdescribe my images, and I wouldn't be able to explain them at all.
Speaking of underdescribing, I think at least some members of the alt-text police actually don't let image descriptions in the post count. What counts is only the image description in the alt-text. It must be accurate, it must be sufficiently detailed, and it must contain all the text transcripts. In fact, I wouldn't wonder if they demanded sufficient explanations in the alt-text, not knowing that explanations in alt-text are actually a big no-no.
Even if all requirements of a good alt-text by alt-text police standards are met or even exceeded by the image description in the post, chances are the alt-text police will still sanction me if the alt-text doesn't meet these criteria.
When it comes to my original images, even squeezing all that into the 1,500-character limit for alt-texts imposed by Mastodon is pretty much impossible. Squeezing it into the 512-character limit for alt-text imposed by Misskey and its forks is even more impossible.
The only winning move is to not play at all. Curiously, some people are even upset about me rarely posting any images. Although they don't follow me. Although the channel that I use for original images (@Jupiter Rowland's (streams) outlet) has next to no reach, so even if I were to post images again, practically nobody would notice. Although it doesn't even seem that there's much interest in that kind of images in the first place.
But apparently, according to some, posting images with only rudimentary alt-text whipped up in a minute, no long description and no explanations is always so much better than not posting images because it takes so much time and effort to describe them.
#Long #LongPost #CWLong #CWLongPost #FediMeta #FediverseMeta #CWFediMeta #CWFediverseMeta #AltText #AltTextMeta #CWAltTextMeta #ImageDescription #ImageDescriptions #ImageDescriptionMeta #CWImageDescriptionMeta #AltTextPolice #MastodonHOA #CW #CWs #CWMeta #ContentWarning #ContentWarnings #ContentWarningMeta #CWContentWarningMeta #CharacterLimit #CharacterLimits #CharacterLimitMeta #CWCharacterLimitMeta #500Characters #MastodonCulture -
CW: Long posts vs insufficiently described images: I can't win either way; CW: long (over 3,500 characters), Fediverse meta, Fediverse-beyond-Mastodon meta, alt-text meta, image description meta, content warning meta, character limit meta
On the one hand, I have to go out of my way and write two image descriptions for each one of my original images. One is short and goes into the alt-text, and I'm going to limit all my future alt-text to a maximum of 512 characters (otherwise users on Misskey, Sharkey etc. will believe I haven't written any alt-text because they won't receive any due to a bug).
The other one is enormous degrees of magnitudes longer than anything most Fediverse users have ever read in the Fediverse. It also contains all explanations necessary to understand the image and its description, and if there's text anywhere within the borders of the image, readable or not, it contains verbatim transcripts of said text.
The nature of my original images requires such long descriptions. Besides, the only way to really be safe from the alt-text police of the Mastodon HOA is to overcomply with whatever minimum standards for good image descriptions anyone of them may have.
On the other hand, the self-same Mastodon HOA is likely to sanction me for the self-same posts. The reason: The posts are way too long. They exceed the limit of 500 characters that's so deeply engrained into Mastodon's culture that many Mastodonians are eager to defend it. Even if I hide them behind a summary with a content warning about the post being long. If I were to appease these Mastodonians, I'd have to underdescribe my images, and I wouldn't be able to explain them at all.
Speaking of underdescribing, I think at least some members of the alt-text police actually don't let image descriptions in the post count. What counts is only the image description in the alt-text. It must be accurate, it must be sufficiently detailed, and it must contain all the text transcripts. In fact, I wouldn't wonder if they demanded sufficient explanations in the alt-text, not knowing that explanations in alt-text are actually a big no-no.
Even if all requirements of a good alt-text by alt-text police standards are met or even exceeded by the image description in the post, chances are the alt-text police will still sanction me if the alt-text doesn't meet these criteria.
When it comes to my original images, even squeezing all that into the 1,500-character limit for alt-texts imposed by Mastodon is pretty much impossible. Squeezing it into the 512-character limit for alt-text imposed by Misskey and its forks is even more impossible.
The only winning move is to not play at all. Curiously, some people are even upset about me rarely posting any images. Although they don't follow me. Although the channel that I use for original images (@Jupiter Rowland's (streams) outlet) has next to no reach, so even if I were to post images again, practically nobody would notice. Although it doesn't even seem that there's much interest in that kind of images in the first place.
But apparently, according to some, posting images with only rudimentary alt-text whipped up in a minute, no long description and no explanations is always so much better than not posting images because it takes so much time and effort to describe them.
#Long #LongPost #CWLong #CWLongPost #FediMeta #FediverseMeta #CWFediMeta #CWFediverseMeta #AltText #AltTextMeta #CWAltTextMeta #ImageDescription #ImageDescriptions #ImageDescriptionMeta #CWImageDescriptionMeta #AltTextPolice #MastodonHOA #CW #CWs #CWMeta #ContentWarning #ContentWarnings #ContentWarningMeta #CWContentWarningMeta #CharacterLimit #CharacterLimits #CharacterLimitMeta #CWCharacterLimitMeta #500Characters #MastodonCulture -
CW: Long posts vs insufficiently described images: I can't win either way; CW: long (over 3,500 characters), Fediverse meta, Fediverse-beyond-Mastodon meta, alt-text meta, image description meta, content warning meta, character limit meta
On the one hand, I have to go out of my way and write two image descriptions for each one of my original images. One is short and goes into the alt-text, and I'm going to limit all my future alt-text to a maximum of 512 characters (otherwise users on Misskey, Sharkey etc. will believe I haven't written any alt-text because they won't receive any due to a bug).
The other one is enormous degrees of magnitudes longer than anything most Fediverse users have ever read in the Fediverse. It also contains all explanations necessary to understand the image and its description, and if there's text anywhere within the borders of the image, readable or not, it contains verbatim transcripts of said text.
The nature of my original images requires such long descriptions. Besides, the only way to really be safe from the alt-text police of the Mastodon HOA is to overcomply with whatever minimum standards for good image descriptions anyone of them may have.
On the other hand, the self-same Mastodon HOA is likely to sanction me for the self-same posts. The reason: The posts are way too long. They exceed the limit of 500 characters that's so deeply engrained into Mastodon's culture that many Mastodonians are eager to defend it. Even if I hide them behind a summary with a content warning about the post being long. If I were to appease these Mastodonians, I'd have to underdescribe my images, and I wouldn't be able to explain them at all.
Speaking of underdescribing, I think at least some members of the alt-text police actually don't let image descriptions in the post count. What counts is only the image description in the alt-text. It must be accurate, it must be sufficiently detailed, and it must contain all the text transcripts. In fact, I wouldn't wonder if they demanded sufficient explanations in the alt-text, not knowing that explanations in alt-text are actually a big no-no.
Even if all requirements of a good alt-text by alt-text police standards are met or even exceeded by the image description in the post, chances are the alt-text police will still sanction me if the alt-text doesn't meet these criteria.
When it comes to my original images, even squeezing all that into the 1,500-character limit for alt-texts imposed by Mastodon is pretty much impossible. Squeezing it into the 512-character limit for alt-text imposed by Misskey and its forks is even more impossible.
The only winning move is to not play at all. Curiously, some people are even upset about me rarely posting any images. Although they don't follow me. Although the channel that I use for original images (@Jupiter Rowland's (streams) outlet) has next to no reach, so even if I were to post images again, practically nobody would notice. Although it doesn't even seem that there's much interest in that kind of images in the first place.
But apparently, according to some, posting images with only rudimentary alt-text whipped up in a minute, no long description and no explanations is always so much better than not posting images because it takes so much time and effort to describe them.
#Long #LongPost #CWLong #CWLongPost #FediMeta #FediverseMeta #CWFediMeta #CWFediverseMeta #AltText #AltTextMeta #CWAltTextMeta #ImageDescription #ImageDescriptions #ImageDescriptionMeta #CWImageDescriptionMeta #AltTextPolice #MastodonHOA #CW #CWs #CWMeta #ContentWarning #ContentWarnings #ContentWarningMeta #CWContentWarningMeta #CharacterLimit #CharacterLimits #CharacterLimitMeta #CWCharacterLimitMeta #500Characters #MastodonCulture -
CW: Long posts vs insufficiently described images: I can't win either way; CW: long (over 3,500 characters), Fediverse meta, Fediverse-beyond-Mastodon meta, alt-text meta, image description meta, content warning meta, character limit meta
On the one hand, I have to go out of my way and write two image descriptions for each one of my original images. One is short and goes into the alt-text, and I'm going to limit all my future alt-text to a maximum of 512 characters (otherwise users on Misskey, Sharkey etc. will believe I haven't written any alt-text because they won't receive any due to a bug).
The other one is enormous degrees of magnitudes longer than anything most Fediverse users have ever read in the Fediverse. It also contains all explanations necessary to understand the image and its description, and if there's text anywhere within the borders of the image, readable or not, it contains verbatim transcripts of said text.
The nature of my original images requires such long descriptions. Besides, the only way to really be safe from the alt-text police of the Mastodon HOA is to overcomply with whatever minimum standards for good image descriptions anyone of them may have.
On the other hand, the self-same Mastodon HOA is likely to sanction me for the self-same posts. The reason: The posts are way too long. They exceed the limit of 500 characters that's so deeply engrained into Mastodon's culture that many Mastodonians are eager to defend it. Even if I hide them behind a summary with a content warning about the post being long. If I were to appease these Mastodonians, I'd have to underdescribe my images, and I wouldn't be able to explain them at all.
Speaking of underdescribing, I think at least some members of the alt-text police actually don't let image descriptions in the post count. What counts is only the image description in the alt-text. It must be accurate, it must be sufficiently detailed, and it must contain all the text transcripts. In fact, I wouldn't wonder if they demanded sufficient explanations in the alt-text, not knowing that explanations in alt-text are actually a big no-no.
Even if all requirements of a good alt-text by alt-text police standards are met or even exceeded by the image description in the post, chances are the alt-text police will still sanction me if the alt-text doesn't meet these criteria.
When it comes to my original images, even squeezing all that into the 1,500-character limit for alt-texts imposed by Mastodon is pretty much impossible. Squeezing it into the 512-character limit for alt-text imposed by Misskey and its forks is even more impossible.
The only winning move is to not play at all. Curiously, some people are even upset about me rarely posting any images. Although they don't follow me. Although the channel that I use for original images (@Jupiter Rowland's (streams) outlet) has next to no reach, so even if I were to post images again, practically nobody would notice. Although it doesn't even seem that there's much interest in that kind of images in the first place.
But apparently, according to some, posting images with only rudimentary alt-text whipped up in a minute, no long description and no explanations is always so much better than not posting images because it takes so much time and effort to describe them.
#Long #LongPost #CWLong #CWLongPost #FediMeta #FediverseMeta #CWFediMeta #CWFediverseMeta #AltText #AltTextMeta #CWAltTextMeta #ImageDescription #ImageDescriptions #ImageDescriptionMeta #CWImageDescriptionMeta #AltTextPolice #MastodonHOA #CW #CWs #CWMeta #ContentWarning #ContentWarnings #ContentWarningMeta #CWContentWarningMeta #CharacterLimit #CharacterLimits #CharacterLimitMeta #CWCharacterLimitMeta #500Characters #MastodonCulture -
CW: Long posts vs insufficiently described images: I can't win either way; CW: long (over 3,500 characters), Fediverse meta, Fediverse-beyond-Mastodon meta, alt-text meta, image description meta, content warning meta, character limit meta
On the one hand, I have to go out of my way and write two image descriptions for each one of my original images. One is short and goes into the alt-text, and I'm going to limit all my future alt-text to a maximum of 512 characters (otherwise users on Misskey, Sharkey etc. will believe I haven't written any alt-text because they won't receive any due to a bug).
The other one is enormous degrees of magnitudes longer than anything most Fediverse users have ever read in the Fediverse. It also contains all explanations necessary to understand the image and its description, and if there's text anywhere within the borders of the image, readable or not, it contains verbatim transcripts of said text.
The nature of my original images requires such long descriptions. Besides, the only way to really be safe from the alt-text police of the Mastodon HOA is to overcomply with whatever minimum standards for good image descriptions anyone of them may have.
On the other hand, the self-same Mastodon HOA is likely to sanction me for the self-same posts. The reason: The posts are way too long. They exceed the limit of 500 characters that's so deeply engrained into Mastodon's culture that many Mastodonians are eager to defend it. Even if I hide them behind a summary with a content warning about the post being long. If I were to appease these Mastodonians, I'd have to underdescribe my images, and I wouldn't be able to explain them at all.
Speaking of underdescribing, I think at least some members of the alt-text police actually don't let image descriptions in the post count. What counts is only the image description in the alt-text. It must be accurate, it must be sufficiently detailed, and it must contain all the text transcripts. In fact, I wouldn't wonder if they demanded sufficient explanations in the alt-text, not knowing that explanations in alt-text are actually a big no-no.
Even if all requirements of a good alt-text by alt-text police standards are met or even exceeded by the image description in the post, chances are the alt-text police will still sanction me if the alt-text doesn't meet these criteria.
When it comes to my original images, even squeezing all that into the 1,500-character limit for alt-texts imposed by Mastodon is pretty much impossible. Squeezing it into the 512-character limit for alt-text imposed by Misskey and its forks is even more impossible.
The only winning move is to not play at all. Curiously, some people are even upset about me rarely posting any images. Although they don't follow me. Although the channel that I use for original images (@Jupiter Rowland's (streams) outlet) has next to no reach, so even if I were to post images again, practically nobody would notice. Although it doesn't even seem that there's much interest in that kind of images in the first place.
But apparently, according to some, posting images with only rudimentary alt-text whipped up in a minute, no long description and no explanations is always so much better than not posting images because it takes so much time and effort to describe them.
#Long #LongPost #CWLong #CWLongPost #FediMeta #FediverseMeta #CWFediMeta #CWFediverseMeta #AltText #AltTextMeta #CWAltTextMeta #ImageDescription #ImageDescriptions #ImageDescriptionMeta #CWImageDescriptionMeta #AltTextPolice #MastodonHOA #CW #CWs #CWMeta #ContentWarning #ContentWarnings #ContentWarningMeta #CWContentWarningMeta #CharacterLimit #CharacterLimits #CharacterLimitMeta #CWCharacterLimitMeta #500Characters #MastodonCulture -
CW: Long posts vs insufficiently described images: I can't win either way; CW: long (over 3,500 characters), Fediverse meta, Fediverse-beyond-Mastodon meta, alt-text meta, image description meta, content warning meta, character limit meta
On the one hand, I have to go out of my way and write two image descriptions for each one of my original images. One is short and goes into the alt-text, and I'm going to limit all my future alt-text to a maximum of 512 characters (otherwise users on Misskey, Sharkey etc. will believe I haven't written any alt-text because they won't receive any due to a bug).
The other one is enormous degrees of magnitudes longer than anything most Fediverse users have ever read in the Fediverse. It also contains all explanations necessary to understand the image and its description, and if there's text anywhere within the borders of the image, readable or not, it contains verbatim transcripts of said text.
The nature of my original images requires such long descriptions. Besides, the only way to really be safe from the alt-text police of the Mastodon HOA is to overcomply with whatever minimum standards for good image descriptions anyone of them may have.
On the other hand, the self-same Mastodon HOA is likely to sanction me for the self-same posts. The reason: The posts are way too long. They exceed the limit of 500 characters that's so deeply engrained into Mastodon's culture that many Mastodonians are eager to defend it. Even if I hide them behind a summary with a content warning about the post being long. If I were to appease these Mastodonians, I'd have to underdescribe my images, and I wouldn't be able to explain them at all.
Speaking of underdescribing, I think at least some members of the alt-text police actually don't let image descriptions in the post count. What counts is only the image description in the alt-text. It must be accurate, it must be sufficiently detailed, and it must contain all the text transcripts. In fact, I wouldn't wonder if they demanded sufficient explanations in the alt-text, not knowing that explanations in alt-text are actually a big no-no.
Even if all requirements of a good alt-text by alt-text police standards are met or even exceeded by the image description in the post, chances are the alt-text police will still sanction me if the alt-text doesn't meet these criteria.
When it comes to my original images, even squeezing all that into the 1,500-character limit for alt-texts imposed by Mastodon is pretty much impossible. Squeezing it into the 512-character limit for alt-text imposed by Misskey and its forks is even more impossible.
The only winning move is to not play at all. Curiously, some people are even upset about me rarely posting any images. Although they don't follow me. Although the channel that I use for original images (@Jupiter Rowland's (streams) outlet) has next to no reach, so even if I were to post images again, practically nobody would notice. Although it doesn't even seem that there's much interest in that kind of images in the first place.
But apparently, according to some, posting images with only rudimentary alt-text whipped up in a minute, no long description and no explanations is always so much better than not posting images because it takes so much time and effort to describe them.
#Long #LongPost #CWLong #CWLongPost #FediMeta #FediverseMeta #CWFediMeta #CWFediverseMeta #AltText #AltTextMeta #CWAltTextMeta #ImageDescription #ImageDescriptions #ImageDescriptionMeta #CWImageDescriptionMeta #AltTextPolice #MastodonHOA #CW #CWs #CWMeta #ContentWarning #ContentWarnings #ContentWarningMeta #CWContentWarningMeta #CharacterLimit #CharacterLimits #CharacterLimitMeta #CWCharacterLimitMeta #500Characters #MastodonCulture -
@C. I have two major issues with the Mastodon HOA.
One, they try hard to force "Mastodon standards", Mastodon culture and Mastodon's unwritten rules upon the whole Fediverse. Including places that not only aren't Mastodon, but that are very much not Mastodon. Simply because they can't see where a message is from. In fact, many of them are still fully convinced that the Fediverse is only Mastodon.
And so you have members of the Mastodon HOA yelling at someone who is allegedly "doing Mastodon wrong", but that someone is actually on Friendica and has been since as early as 2011. As in about five years longer than Mastodon has even existed. And seriously, the only places in the Fediverse that are even more different and farther away from Mastodon than Friendica (without specialising in something that Mastodon absolutely can't do) are Friendica's own descendants: Hubzilla, (streams), Forte.
The Mastodon HOA probably don't know that Friendica exists. They definitely don't know that either of the other three exists. They definitely don't know that any of the four is significantly different from Mastodon in any way. And frankly, they don't care a bit. If it appears on any Mastodon timeline, it's Mastodon to them, and it has to adapt to Mastodon's culture and follow Mastodon's rules.
Two, they don't coordinate anything among each other. They're just a bunch of lone wolves. Everyone has got their own standards, but everyone thinks their personal standards are the one and only Mastodon/Fediverse gold standards, and everyone enforces their own standards. And, of course, everyone thinks their standards can and must apply always, including in the most obscure edge-cases.
For example, they've got standards for describing real-life photos on Mastodon with a character limit of 500. And they try to enforce these standards always and everywhere. However, these standards don't necessarily work perfectly when I post a rendering from a super-obscure 3-D virtual world on (streams) with a character limit of over 24 million where I've got loads of room to write an additional long image description and put it into the post text.
The Mastodon HOA, or at least some of their members, appear to be constantly raising their minimum quality requirements for image descriptions. They must be absolutely accurate, and they must be sufficiently detailed that nobody will ever have to ask for a detail description. Oh, and they must explain whatever the audience may not know about the image or the description. (At this point, it's fair to mention that explanations must never go into the alt-text.)
Sure, I can do that. I have done so in the past. But I can't do that within Mastodon's alt-text character limit of 1,500 (Mastodon truncates longer alt-texts from outside). I can do that even less within Misskey's alt-text character limit of only 512 (Misskey and the Forkeys should truncate longer alt-texts, but due to a bug, they delete them entirely instead, giving the impression that you haven't written an alt-text at all). I can only do that in the additional long description in the post text.
If the Mastodon HOA demand I transcribe literally any and all text within the borders of an image, I can do that, too. In fact, I have done so in the past. I can transcribe bits of text verbatim which the Mastodon HOA can't even read. Which the Mastodon HOA couldn't even find in the image because they're so tiny. But there's no way that I can squeeze 20+ individual text transcripts into 1,500 characters of alt-text along with the rest of the visual description, much less into only 512 characters. The text transcripts will have to go into the long description in the post text, whether the Mastodon HOA want or not.
This means that the post will exceed the holy limit of 500 characters by huge magnitudes. This, in turn, means that when I've satisfied one Mastodon HOA member, another one comes and sanctions me for exceeding the holy 500-character limit. That is, chances are it's actually the same Mastodon HOA member.
In other words, if the content of an image is obscure enough and requires enough description, the only winning move when I want to post such an image is to not post it at all.
#Long #LongPost #CWLong #CWLongPost #FediMeta #FediverseMeta #CWFediMeta #CWFediverseMeta #CharacterLimit #CharacterLimits #CharacterLimitMeta #CWCharacterLimitMeta #500Characters #AltText #AltTextMeta #CWAltTextMeta #ImageDescription #ImageDescriptions #ImageDescriptionMeta #CWImageDescriptionMeta #MastodonCulture #MastodonHOA -
@C. I have two major issues with the Mastodon HOA.
One, they try hard to force "Mastodon standards", Mastodon culture and Mastodon's unwritten rules upon the whole Fediverse. Including places that not only aren't Mastodon, but that are very much not Mastodon. Simply because they can't see where a message is from. In fact, many of them are still fully convinced that the Fediverse is only Mastodon.
And so you have members of the Mastodon HOA yelling at someone who is allegedly "doing Mastodon wrong", but that someone is actually on Friendica and has been since as early as 2011. As in about five years longer than Mastodon has even existed. And seriously, the only places in the Fediverse that are even more different and farther away from Mastodon than Friendica (without specialising in something that Mastodon absolutely can't do) are Friendica's own descendants: Hubzilla, (streams), Forte.
The Mastodon HOA probably don't know that Friendica exists. They definitely don't know that either of the other three exists. They definitely don't know that any of the four is significantly different from Mastodon in any way. And frankly, they don't care a bit. If it appears on any Mastodon timeline, it's Mastodon to them, and it has to adapt to Mastodon's culture and follow Mastodon's rules.
Two, they don't coordinate anything among each other. They're just a bunch of lone wolves. Everyone has got their own standards, but everyone thinks their personal standards are the one and only Mastodon/Fediverse gold standards, and everyone enforces their own standards. And, of course, everyone thinks their standards can and must apply always, including in the most obscure edge-cases.
For example, they've got standards for describing real-life photos on Mastodon with a character limit of 500. And they try to enforce these standards always and everywhere. However, these standards don't necessarily work perfectly when I post a rendering from a super-obscure 3-D virtual world on (streams) with a character limit of over 24 million where I've got loads of room to write an additional long image description and put it into the post text.
The Mastodon HOA, or at least some of their members, appear to be constantly raising their minimum quality requirements for image descriptions. They must be absolutely accurate, and they must be sufficiently detailed that nobody will ever have to ask for a detail description. Oh, and they must explain whatever the audience may not know about the image or the description. (At this point, it's fair to mention that explanations must never go into the alt-text.)
Sure, I can do that. I have done so in the past. But I can't do that within Mastodon's alt-text character limit of 1,500 (Mastodon truncates longer alt-texts from outside). I can do that even less within Misskey's alt-text character limit of only 512 (Misskey and the Forkeys should truncate longer alt-texts, but due to a bug, they delete them entirely instead, giving the impression that you haven't written an alt-text at all). I can only do that in the additional long description in the post text.
If the Mastodon HOA demand I transcribe literally any and all text within the borders of an image, I can do that, too. In fact, I have done so in the past. I can transcribe bits of text verbatim which the Mastodon HOA can't even read. Which the Mastodon HOA couldn't even find in the image because they're so tiny. But there's no way that I can squeeze 20+ individual text transcripts into 1,500 characters of alt-text along with the rest of the visual description, much less into only 512 characters. The text transcripts will have to go into the long description in the post text, whether the Mastodon HOA want or not.
This means that the post will exceed the holy limit of 500 characters by huge magnitudes. This, in turn, means that when I've satisfied one Mastodon HOA member, another one comes and sanctions me for exceeding the holy 500-character limit. That is, chances are it's actually the same Mastodon HOA member.
In other words, if the content of an image is obscure enough and requires enough description, the only winning move when I want to post such an image is to not post it at all.
#Long #LongPost #CWLong #CWLongPost #FediMeta #FediverseMeta #CWFediMeta #CWFediverseMeta #CharacterLimit #CharacterLimits #CharacterLimitMeta #CWCharacterLimitMeta #500Characters #AltText #AltTextMeta #CWAltTextMeta #ImageDescription #ImageDescriptions #ImageDescriptionMeta #CWImageDescriptionMeta #MastodonCulture #MastodonHOA -
@C. I have two major issues with the Mastodon HOA.
One, they try hard to force "Mastodon standards", Mastodon culture and Mastodon's unwritten rules upon the whole Fediverse. Including places that not only aren't Mastodon, but that are very much not Mastodon. Simply because they can't see where a message is from. In fact, many of them are still fully convinced that the Fediverse is only Mastodon.
And so you have members of the Mastodon HOA yelling at someone who is allegedly "doing Mastodon wrong", but that someone is actually on Friendica and has been since as early as 2011. As in about five years longer than Mastodon has even existed. And seriously, the only places in the Fediverse that are even more different and farther away from Mastodon than Friendica (without specialising in something that Mastodon absolutely can't do) are Friendica's own descendants: Hubzilla, (streams), Forte.
The Mastodon HOA probably don't know that Friendica exists. They definitely don't know that either of the other three exists. They definitely don't know that any of the four is significantly different from Mastodon in any way. And frankly, they don't care a bit. If it appears on any Mastodon timeline, it's Mastodon to them, and it has to adapt to Mastodon's culture and follow Mastodon's rules.
Two, they don't coordinate anything among each other. They're just a bunch of lone wolves. Everyone has got their own standards, but everyone thinks their personal standards are the one and only Mastodon/Fediverse gold standards, and everyone enforces their own standards. And, of course, everyone thinks their standards can and must apply always, including in the most obscure edge-cases.
For example, they've got standards for describing real-life photos on Mastodon with a character limit of 500. And they try to enforce these standards always and everywhere. However, these standards don't necessarily work perfectly when I post a rendering from a super-obscure 3-D virtual world on (streams) with a character limit of over 24 million where I've got loads of room to write an additional long image description and put it into the post text.
The Mastodon HOA, or at least some of their members, appear to be constantly raising their minimum quality requirements for image descriptions. They must be absolutely accurate, and they must be sufficiently detailed that nobody will ever have to ask for a detail description. Oh, and they must explain whatever the audience may not know about the image or the description. (At this point, it's fair to mention that explanations must never go into the alt-text.)
Sure, I can do that. I have done so in the past. But I can't do that within Mastodon's alt-text character limit of 1,500 (Mastodon truncates longer alt-texts from outside). I can do that even less within Misskey's alt-text character limit of only 512 (Misskey and the Forkeys should truncate longer alt-texts, but due to a bug, they delete them entirely instead, giving the impression that you haven't written an alt-text at all). I can only do that in the additional long description in the post text.
If the Mastodon HOA demand I transcribe literally any and all text within the borders of an image, I can do that, too. In fact, I have done so in the past. I can transcribe bits of text verbatim which the Mastodon HOA can't even read. Which the Mastodon HOA couldn't even find in the image because they're so tiny. But there's no way that I can squeeze 20+ individual text transcripts into 1,500 characters of alt-text along with the rest of the visual description, much less into only 512 characters. The text transcripts will have to go into the long description in the post text, whether the Mastodon HOA want or not.
This means that the post will exceed the holy limit of 500 characters by huge magnitudes. This, in turn, means that when I've satisfied one Mastodon HOA member, another one comes and sanctions me for exceeding the holy 500-character limit. That is, chances are it's actually the same Mastodon HOA member.
In other words, if the content of an image is obscure enough and requires enough description, the only winning move when I want to post such an image is to not post it at all.
#Long #LongPost #CWLong #CWLongPost #FediMeta #FediverseMeta #CWFediMeta #CWFediverseMeta #CharacterLimit #CharacterLimits #CharacterLimitMeta #CWCharacterLimitMeta #500Characters #AltText #AltTextMeta #CWAltTextMeta #ImageDescription #ImageDescriptions #ImageDescriptionMeta #CWImageDescriptionMeta #MastodonCulture #MastodonHOA